Slayer of the Dead
by Locathah
Summary: BTVS X Dawn of the Dead. Even the Powers that Be can't protect man kind from itself. Civilization falls apart beneath the brunt of an unscheduled apocalypse. Buffy Centric
1. Rude Awakenings

A BTVS/DOTD 2k Fanfic Crossover by Locathah

Timeline : Takes place shortly after season 5 episode 1, in which Buffy slew the infamous Dracula. No Dawn, No Glory.

Summary : Even the Powers that Be can't protect mankind from itself. Civilization falls apart beneath the brunt of an unscheduled apocalypse and the Slayer finds herself struggling not only to survive, but to understand what purpose a savior has in a world that has already been lost.

Rating : R

Disclaimer : Stating the obvious but none of the characters associated with Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Dawn of the Dead belong to me.

_**Chapter 1: Rude Awakenings**_

It was three in the morning when Rupert Giles received a very unexpected phone call. Not that this was unusual. As a scholar versed in legends and lore of the daemon underworld the unexpected had often been a matter of course for the aging watcher. It was actually during the rare periods of calm where he was at his worst. When every shadow failed to reveal some sinister new foe and every sewer grate remained closed without sign of something slimy and demonic that was when he truly became his most nervous and irritable. This stance, not an uncommon one among those in his profession, was based on a generally acknowledged golden rule. The quieter life was and the longer you had to wait for a new evil to show its face, the darker and more world threatening that inevitable evil tended to be. So, despite the fact that a middle of the night phone call was significantly less startling than the kind of surprise he was used to receiving, he still reacted rather harshly. One flailing fist nearly demolished the ringing contraption before his sleep muddled brain managed to identify the source as something completely inanimate and non-threatening. Picking up the handset he tried to calm himself as well as forget his embarrassment. It was all an indication of just how quiet it had been for the past three months, Dracula's demise having elevated his charge's legend to such heights that the local vampire population was driven by fear, almost in entirety, to a quick retreat in an effort to reach places far, far away. While this had delighted Buffy, Giles had been waiting expectantly ever since for something to fill the rather large power vacuum.

"Giles?" The voice of his slayer cleared the last bit of confusion from his sleep fogged brain and he tried to wake up enough to answer what had apparently not been her first repetition of his name.

"Yes, Buffy. I do hope you aren't calling at three in the morning for anything short of an apocalypse?" He found himself complaining just for the sake of propriety. It wouldn't do to admit that he didn't mind being woken up at all if it resulted in his vague wariness finally receiving focus. That way lead to even more late night phone calls, many of which would undoubtedly be about more trivial matters that he would probably regret hearing of, generally a slippery slope best avoided if one wanted to ever manage a decent night's rest.

"Would a head pounding skull breaking vision be sufficient?" He could hear it now - the slight shaking in her normally confidant voice – and if she was spooked then they really did have something to worry about. He forced his voice to remain calm. Letting her know that the idea of a new threat finally surfacing both excited and relieved him probably wouldn't be considered the wisest course of action..

"Buffy are you saying that you received a Slayer Dream of such intensity that it caused you physical pain? This is important now Buffy, has this ever happened before?"

"Yes but without the British librarian speak and no, normally my head isn't on the verge of exploding afterward. Isn't this the point where you ask me how the worlds going to end?"

"Dear lord, you did see an apocalypse? Really, I was only joking…" A nasty daemon setting up shop on the hell mouth would have been far more palatable.

"Well, no, not exactly."

If he'd had his glasses on Giles would have taken them off to clean them at this point out of vexation. His hand had actually reached up to do so before he noticed the absence. Sometimes getting information from his young charge was like pulling teeth "Buffy…"

"It was more of a … you know, on second thought, I don't want to do this more than once. Why don't you go get Xander and I'll go get Willow and then we can all meet back at your place. 'Kay? 'Kay."

"Are you sure this can't wait until a more civilized hour?" He made sure his voice sounded annoyed. Again, best not to encourage them or he'd never get a full night of sleep again.

"Giles were you not listening? Skull breaking. Pay attention! Besides I already tried going back to sleep and it didn't work."

"Buffy just because you have insomnia doesn't mean…" He began only to be interrupted.

"Oh. I got back to sleep. No problem." Buffy replied bitterly.

"Then what _was_ the problem?"

"It started out as Skull throbbing. Skull breaking was the punishment for being lazy."

"Oh dear. Well in that case I'll be sure to make Xander get a box of donuts on the way back." He'd almost hung up before the discrepancy in one of her earlier statements finally registered and he put the receiver back to his ear. "Did you say you had to get Willow? Isn't she in your dorm with you?"

"Er. No. She's… elsewhere. But I know which elsewhere so that's not a problem as I can make that elsewhere herewhere so then…"

"She's with Tara. Right then. We'll bring a couple of extra donuts."

Hanging up the phone he fumbled for his glasses and grabbed something casual to wear, dialing Xander's number at the same time. The world was probably on the verge of ending again, from the sounds of things. Armageddon and Mayhem might be just around the corner and whatever higher beings were responsible for Buffy's callings were so frantic they were actually metaphysically nagging her to do something and do it immediately.

Giles felt more at peace than he had in weeks.

"So let me get this straight. You're getting blinding, 911, Red Alert the Klingons are coming, visions of dire warning but instead of an open hell mouth or an army of daemons all you're seeing is one lousy scientist?" No one could ever put things in quite the same perspective Xander did and Buffy couldn't help but agree with him.

"Pretty much. Well, there aren't any aliens or the phone call but someone was definitely swinging a sledgehammer inside my head. Oh! And there's more than one scientist but the rest come across like background scenery." She answered.

"Did it show the scientist here?" This comment came from the only person in the group who had ever been a daemon. Buffy didn't really understand Anya, or rather she did but her conclusions concerning the Ex-Daemon always ended up leaving her very, very confused. For example she knew the next words out of her mouth would be something utterly selfish, but predictable and logical in her case did not go hand in hand. "Because if it did then perhaps we should all be somewhere else. Soon. Like now. Xander go steal your parents car and their money."

Good old Anya. She was kind of like a cockroach Buffy decided. Except… not quite so yucky. If she had to bet on someone managing to live through an apocalypse it would have to be Anya. Of course Xander just stared at her like she was nuts while Willow sent a dirty look in her direction. Buffy was fairly sure that Willow still considered Anya to be significantly below Xander's potential standards. Willow was biased though. Xander had dated a mummy and a giant preying mantas, and if that wasn't bad enough he'd even gone out with Cordelia. As far as Buffy was concerned Anya was the cream of that particular crop.

"Xander. Now. When the Powers that Be hit the panic button you don't stick around and wait for the world to blow up!" Anya shook her head in disgust. "Car. Money. Now!"

"Anya don't you think you might be over-reacting just a little bit?" Willow patronized, "This is what, our, umpteenth apocalypse? And what do you mean 'Powers'"

"Well where did you think her visions came from? Bad takeout?" Anya responded with exasperation.

"I think, Anya, what Willow is asking is who exactly the Powers that Be are." Giles interjected. Buffy had to admit she was getting kind of curious herself. It'd be nice to know who to beat up as a thank you for the fact that her brain still felt like it was trying to get out through her eyeballs. She was fairly sure that brains were supposed to stay put right where they were. Unless she was extracting them from daemons with the aid of a sledgehammer but that was an entirely different issue – one which was much more entertaining than her current skull splitting status.

"Oh my God. Are you all stupid?" Anyone other than Anya would have stirred up some hard feelings with that comment. With Anya it was just par for the course and they were all too numb to her unequaled bluntness to care. "You run around saving the world and you don't even know who your boss is?"

"You know," Buffy felt required to interrupt here. "I don't recall having a boss because, hey, if I do I'd love to make a couple of complaints. Bad hours, no pay, no vacation time…"

"The Powers that Be are the goody two shoes of the metaphysical world. They manipulate champions to try and keep the balance, or as mortals might put it to keep everything from getting sucked into one of a large variety of hell dimensions." Despite her annoyance it was obvious that Anya was loving being the smart one. Not that Buffy cared but she could see Willow debating between excitement at the information and annoyance at the source as her facial expression moved back and forth between the two mindsets until the little red-headed witch ended up just looking likes she'd eaten something sour.

"So why don't they talk to me directly." Buffy asked. Anya was right on one account, she'd rarely if ever considered the possibility that there was some reachable higher being directing her movements. She really didn't like the idea. She liked it even less that they weren't up front about it.

"These are higher powers Buffy. Manipulating the universe and all that. If you were playing a million games of chess at once would you stop to have a chat with one of the pawns or just move the damn thing and check out the next board?"

"Well, this is nice," Giles interrupted. "Under other circumstances I'd be fascinated Anya but it doesn't tell us why you're so scared by this one dream. A dream which fails to depict an apocalypse no less." Giles had that look in his eyes. Like he wanted to pick up a musty old book and solve all their problems. Buffy could see the first signs of frustration and knew that the glasses would be coming off any minute now. Actually she herself was twirling a stake in one hand but that was entirely different. Really. She was just being prepared should a vampire appear unexpectedly. Not that the vampire would be able to get past the front door but hey, that wasn't an excuse to be careless.

"But you said that they hit her twice. Right. The old one two?" Anya asked with furrowed eyebrows.

"Well yes," Giles admitted, though obviously not sure what he was admitting to exactly. "When she went back to sleep she received another…"

"Dreams with blinding headaches?" Anya prompted.

Giles scowled in frustration. "As she said…"

"Well that's it then!" Anya exclaimed standing up and grabbing Xander only to fall back to the couch when jerking on his arm didn't have the desired results. "Come on. Please. I'm too young to die. I'm not even quite sure how old I am anymore but I know I'm definitely too young to die. Don't you understand? The Powers don't DO that. Slayer dreams are old news but they never ever, ever give headaches and they don't double page her. It just isn't done. That's sounds like a panic button to me people and I say we get with the panicking all ready."

"And daemons know everything there is to know about Slayer dreams?" Scoffed Willow. She was obviously starting to get Anya's point though as shown by the hand now tightly gripping that of her very silent girl friend.

"Actually Willow daemons do have an extensive tendency to gossip and the Slayer, as their resident boogey man, has always been one of their favorite topics. Unless a Slayer kept the existence of such a dream strictly to themselves then its inevitable that its existence would leak back to the daemon world." Giles explained.

"See!?" Anya exclaimed in triumph only to have her elation quickly give way to a frown. "Wait. I don't think I want to be right about this. Do I?"

"But that does not, however, mean that we should panic." Giles finished.

"I don't know Giles." Buffy said after a moment of silence. "When gods panic, that's never good."

Xander spoke up in an inappropriately optimistic tone given the thumping in her head. "Well why don't we solve this problem instead of talking about how bad it is. Buffster, are you sure there wasn't anything useful in the dream. Like a name? Maybe even a phone number?"

"Xander it was a Slayer dream, not a little black book. All I saw were lots of initiative style mad scientists, some blue gas, and a slightly too lively for comfort corpse strapped to a table. A 411 was completely lacking." She was a little disgusted with the whole thing herself. It would probably be just about as useful as the last Slayer dream she received. That being, not at all, and having meaning only after it was far too late.

"Well." Willow's girlfriend had till then remained typically silent during the entire conversation. "Maybe we should ask the Powers for c-c-clarification?"

"Are you suggesting we try to contact the beings that give out these visions and simply… ask… for them to please be a little bit more specific?" Giles scoffed and Buffy sent a frown his way. She didn't like the way he'd said that and obviously Willow didn't either as she had initiated that stubborn defensive posture she'd developed. Tara on the other hand looked like she'd been slapped. Giles was too busy cleaning his glasses to even notice.

"I like it!" Oblivious to the subtle undertones Xander shattered the moment. "I'm sure when an omnipotent being told Moses to part the red sea he was probably NOT struck down when he turned around and asked where and when." Everyone just looked at him in shock. "What? I watched the movie when I was five."

Giles shook his head and replaced his glasses. Buffy wondered how long they'd stay there. "Xander you can't just…"

"Yes you can." Anya interrupted matter-of-factly. Odd, selfish and disturbingly blunt as Anya was, Buffy had to admit that she obviously had her uses.

"See!" Grinned Xander. "Go me! Actually go Tara!"

Tara smiled shyly at the praise.

"Well you can't actually talk to them but you can talk to their people. Sort of like asking for a meeting with their lawyers. Though I wouldn't suggest talking to their actual laywers as they tend to be very unfriendly and seem to prefer aggressive negotiations." Continued Anya.

"They're loud and pushy?" Interjected Xander.

"No, they bring weapons. Anyway all you have to do is find one of the designated locations, bring a tribute, and question the Powers' duly appointed representatives. I hear they tend to look down on you a bit for being lowly mortal beings but its their job to give clarification to champions so they aren't about to turn you away. They might tell you to figure it out yourself but, hey, with a panic button situation I really doubt it. Can we flee in terror now that we've helped, Xander?"

"No." His word sounded bland and not particularly impressed by this latest threat.

Anya slumped back on the couch and pouted.

The phone rang and Giles jumped as if it had caught him completely unprepared and he had expected it to attack him. He mumbled something about a Jamba deamon under his breath before picking it up and wandering into the kitchen.

"A Jamba daemon?" Anya said spitefully. "Can't even tell a phone from a Jamba daemon and he expects to save the world?"

"Um. Honey. What's a Jenga daemon?" Xander asked, probably to stop her before she got started on a rant.

"Maybe it's a daemon that doesn't do anything but sit around and play that game all day?" Willow commented enthusiastically.

"Do you think they're sore losers?" Buffy added just to see the exasperation in Anya's face escalate.

"What are you all talking about? A _Jamba _is a daemon with a voice that sounds distinctly like the shrill ringing of a… oh never mind. This is useless."

Several minutes of silence followed while they all waited tensely for Giles to finish what sounded like an increasingly agitated conversation.

"That was the council." Giles stated solemnly as he walked back into the room.

"The same council that fired you and from which I very thoroughly quit? I thought they weren't talking to us. I liked it better that way." Buffy joked. Giles though seemed to have misplaced his funny bone.

"Yes. Normally they wouldn't want anything more to do with us but apparently even they can decide to bury the hatchet when every single book, scroll and post-it note that contains an unfulfilled prophecy suddenly bursts into flame. I think Anya was right. Whatever is going on now obviously involves some kind of apocalypse.

"Ooh I'm so confused." Anya Muttered but Buffy's sensitive hearing managed to make it out. "Should I be happy that I was right or in mortal terror because the world is ending and I'm no longer daemon enough to enjoy it? Decisions. Decisions."

"Ok. Here's a question. How do we stop it. Did they give you a hint?" Willow asked.

"No. I informed them of the details of Buffy's Slayer dream but they have no idea as to the source of the problem. They will be checking into it but I believe that whatever we were being warned about has already happened. The prophecies self destructed exactly one hour after you phoned me Buffy. Obviously whatever occurred was completely unexpected even by these 'powers' and only at the last minute did they realize fate was slipping out of their grasp."

"So they really did hit the panic button and the dreams they sent me were a last ditch effort to stop the world from ending because they didn't have any better ideas?" Buffy turned to Willow and tried to keep the look of mortification off of her face. She didn't get the impression she was being very successful. She's spent at least half of an hour just nursing her pounding head and meanwhile the world had come to a screeching halt. "Why am I suddenly feeling really guilty? Oh yah, that's because the world is going to end and I didn't even try to stop it."

"Actually Buffy according to the council your dream wasn't an isolated event. Reports have been coming in of seers receiving visions worldwide. Most of the weaker seers apparently died from the intensity and even the stronger ones were given little useful information. Scientists performing an experiment was a common theme. One in ten managed to receive images of the dead though you were apparently the first to pick up on a blue gas. Several, however, mentioned images of what appeared to be zombies. Buffy, whatever happened probably occurred someplace very far away from here and well outside your sphere of influence."

Anya deflated. "Worldwide. So we can't just run away then?" Then she brightened. "Hey. Who wants to take a trip to the dimension without shrimp? I know this guy who's really good with portals. I haven't seen him for a hundred years but he's very fond of Rome so he shouldn't be too hard to find."

Everyone simply looked at her until she deflated again and quickly moved straight through to apparent depression.

"Anya." Buffy decided it was time to start really acting like the world was about to end. "Can you find out how we get a line to these Powers you were talking about?"

"Sure. I know some people who know some people. It might take a couple of days though."

"Fine. Tell us if you have any luck. Giles, you'll keep talking to the council? Normally this is where you'd go for the musty books but…"

"Yes I imagine a portion of my collection has probably turned to ash as well. Actually I need to check on that. The prophecies are kept isolated so the rest of the collection should be fine but - good lord if something was put back in the wrong spot…"

"Yes. That's what I worry about during the apocalypse too. Book burnings." Xander quipped.

"Meanwhile," Buffy continued "I'll just go beat up some daemons until they tell me something useful."

"And if that doesn't work?" Ventured Tara.

"If that doesn't work I'll phone Angel and see what he's got." With that she grabbed her coat, tucked an extra couple of stakes in her pockets, and headed for the door.


	2. An Expected Unexpected Apocalypse

_**Chapter 2: An Expected Unexpected Apocalypse**_

The next several days did not proceed in predictable fashion. Buffy had what most would consider a mind boggling amount of experience where the end of the world was concerned. In her mind, the typical apocalyptic process was well defined and straight forward, consisting of three simple steps. First there was the quick and highly convenient surfacing of information; it wouldn't do to have some horrible evil be sneaky enough to carry off an apocalypse without letting every Tom, Dick and Daemon know about it in advance, a fact probably just as responsible for keeping the world safe as the Slayer herself. This was of course followed by a rousing fight involving much gore and bloodshed and the narrowly avoided termination of the world, generally requiring some sort of sacrifice combined with chanting and a really big ego. Finally it all finished up with a some sort of celebration, occasionally this was in the form of a really big party, bur more often than not they simply spent a night dancing at the bronze. Exceptions to the last step were of course allowed when everyone else was in the hospital and you had just sent the perceived love of your life to a hell dimension.

In this case nothing was heard, nothing was killed, and yet the world kept on spinning. They could still have had the party but no one in the Scooby gang thought they deserved one. Unless they were being lied to the council had received nothing from any of their sources other than the very vague assurance that something was indeed extremely wrong. Everyone had found Giles' use of the word 'assurance' in this context very disturbing. Seer visions dried up, magical scrying drew a blank, and not a single musty book that remained held any answers.

As if that hadn't been enough Anya returned with the news concerning the Powers and apparently their messengers had all closed up shop and moved on to other dimensions. At this point Anya had suggested that this was a very good indication that the Powers that Be had decided their world was a complete write off and practically begged them all to rethink her request to hunt down someone capable of opening a portal - preferably one to someplace much less violent and not nearly so close to Armageddon. When they'd once again refused she'd stalked off in a huff only to return several hours later in a sulk. Apparently she'd tried to abandon them and find someone to take her to another dimension on her own and found out that anyone capable of leaving was already long gone. The rats were leaving the ship and no one was even sure if there was any sign of flooding, much less knew where it had sprung a leak.

Finally, Buffy herself had stalked the daemon population of Sunnydale only to find they were all equally clueless but completely panicked. Even the more peaceful daemons were brawling with each other as they tried to relieve the stress of an undirected but overwhelming desire to flee and no place to go. The only things she'd learned from calling Angel was that some evil law firm had disappeared and taken their entire office building with them and that Cordelia's head had spontaneously exploded, literally, when the metaphysical panic button was hit. The conversation had only gone downhill from there and she had yet to decide whether or not to share that last unhappy not to mention gross but useless piece of info with everyone else.

The worst part of the situation was that while the mystical world was shaking in their boots the rest of mankind was oblivious. People went to work. Kids went to school. Dogs crapped on their neighbors lawns. Everything and everyone just continued as if it was business as usual. It almost made Buffy envious.

The Scooby gang had pretty much ditched their normal routines and all relocated to the larger Summer's home. Giles had even brought his books with him reinforcing Buffy's long held belief that they were his version of a security blanket. Anya paced nervously while Giles read and Xander succumbed to the mind numbing drone of the television. Willow and Tara seemed to be constantly snuggling in some instinctual effort to comfort each other while Buffy's Mom poured her worry into household energy and catered to them all. Buffy spent all of her time either watching her witchy friends enviously and wishing that Riley would return early from his trip out of town or stalking Sunnydale's underbelly in the hopes of finding something she could kill. It wasn't only daemons that blew off steam with violence.

It was early on the evening of a Friday when things finally began to go where they'd all known they were headed. More specifically, a warm and toasty place Buffy liked to refer to as Hell and most of the monsters she'd killed now thought of as home. Of course they'd been expecting it to go to literal hell so when Buffy caught sight of a staggering bleeding figure wandering down a typically suburban street at 10PM she didn't know what to make of it.

A victim. That was her first thought. But far too long spent on the hell mouth kept her cautious and instead of rushing forward to help she walked casually forward, one hand reaching for a stake while she pasted on a wide eyed look of helpless concern. It wasn't until she was twenty paces away that she could get a good look at the person and even then she wasn't sure what she was seeing. Peering through the darkness she found what looked like a lost kid and she had to firmly stop herself from moving to help them as some sixth sense whispered to her that all was not as it seemed. Actually the person wasn't so much a kid as they were a teenager decked out in normal Friday night cool fashions. Not the vampire kind of cool that was almost always at least three decades out of date but the normal cool that Harmony or Cordelia would have once approved of… before they'd both died and that thought had gone somewhere completely depressing.

The figure shuffled a few paces closer and it became apparent the victim's navy pants were soaked in dark wet blood. As she moved closer to offer help his bowed head looked up at her with filmy white eyes. He snarled with the viciousness of an animal, teeth bared and spittle dripping down his chin and moments later threw himself at her with the commitment of a run away freight train.

The remembered image of a dead woman opening her eyes amidst a wash of blue gas flickered in her mind and Buffy stared in shock at the creature approaching her, taking in every detail and knowing that this was what they'd been warned about. It matched the living corpse she'd dreamed of to the letter. If she'd been anyone else that moment of shock would have killed her and she knew it, fortunately she wasn't someone else and instincts built over the course of countless nights spent hunting the undead had her fist moving even before she'd recovered from the revelation. When the creature's face turned to bite at her she redirected her swing and smacked it in the forehead with her palm instead. The sound of impact echoed down the alley like a thunder clap and the creature recoiled, not from a normal reaction of pain, but as a result of simple physics. Focusing Buffy dropped to the ground below still reaching hands to sweep its feet out from under it. Of course the creature didn't stay down, Buffy obviously didn't deserve that kind of luck. Perish the thought that cracking its skull open on the pavement would deter it. The thing rose right back to its feet with minimal co-ordination but no signs of injury and attacked again with even less finesse than the first time. Teeth gnashed within a drooling mouth and she latched onto its neck with one hand and a flailing limb with the other, holding it there while it growled madly at her like a rabid dog denied a meal. It gripped her with its free arm and tried to wrench itself free but apparently it had only slightly more strength dead than it had alive. She was happy to note that it found the Slayer as immovable as a stone statue. Buffy really found it refreshing to find a monster that couldn't crush stone with its bare hands.

Several tense moments later she crushed its throat, breaking its neck in the process, and threw it across the street with enough force to knock out a few bricks from the corner of an empty convenience store.

All in all, she wasn't sure what the big deal was. Compared to vampires the walking corpse had been a light weight. Ok. It was gross. Really gross actually. So gross that she'd need to wash her hand until it bled. And if she wasn't so desensitized it might have been upsetting. But overall on the Big Bad Scale of 1 to 10 she couldn't even find it in her heart to justify a score of 1. Either the so called 'powers' had overreacted or she was really missing something.

The feel of the air stirring unnaturally on the back of her neck and the softest padding of bare feet behind her were all the warning she had but moments later another body had been thrown across the street to lay beside its accomplice. The second was a young woman dressed in a hospital gown. Apparently they came in twos, worrying but still not enough to enter them in the scary competition. It was definitely time to check in with the others and find out what they were dealing with. Turning to head home her breath stopped when she caught sight of at least five dark shapes sprinting down the street towards her. A noise sounded from the other direction and she turned to see the two corpses she had been very sure she'd dealt with getting off of the ground and limping in her direction. Both of them had obviously broken limbs and the way one of their necks was hanging was made it obvious that its spine was less than intact. This was all very much of the bad - even a vampire would have found the site intrinsically wrong, but apparently these creatures couldn't care less. All they seemed worried about was whether or not she'd stick around and become a lunchable for them.

If she'd had something very long and very sharp she might have stayed. A really good axe would have been even better; they could do wonders when you didn't know how to kill something because, in her experience, there were very few things that could keep going after they'd lost about a foot from their overall height. But she didn't have an axe, and she suddenly felt a whole lot less arrogant about the imminent end of the world they'd been waiting for than she had a minute ago. Breaking into a run she took off for home leaving what she now found were surprisingly fast corpses behind her and feeling quite thankful that very little in either the day or night could keep pace with a slayer.

"It's started." Those were the first words out of her mouth after she slammed the door, making extra sure the dead bolt was locked before heading to the living room window and peaking out into the darkness. Normally the world seemed most hers when the sun was down and the moon was high but for the first time in a very long time she found herself longing desperately for the safety of the day. She hadn't looked back once on her trip home but it didn't appear that the creatures had managed to keep up with her. Still…

"Oh dear Lord, what happened?" Giles asked from within the dining room. It had pretty much become his personal study and if she looked she knew there'd be a disturbingly large number of open books lying on the dining table.

At this point everyone was staring at her with worried expressions and she suddenly really didn't know what to tell them. It was just a couple of, what, ghouls? Zombies? She'd call them the walking dead but that didn't seem like a big enough qualifier for someone who spent their life killing Vampires, regardless of just how insulting a vampire might find the description as they seemed awfully proud of that undead moniker. Regardless it seemed a bit much to assume that a new dead, possibly undead she supposed, creature was enough proof for her to make the statement that it was… "The End of the World. I think."

"What do you mean you think?" Willow whined. "I mean, it's fairly difficult to mix those kinds of things up isn't it? All the beginning parts are kind of mixxy but the end of the world is like a big cliff you're about to fall off of. You have to be blind not to see it. Unless you're like the Coyote and you see it but the road runner did something really clever with some paint and it doesn't really look like a cliff anymore…"

"Will?" Xander interrupted her. "Calm down."

Buffy took a deep breath and moved to sit on the couch. Then after a second thought she stopped, walked into the dining room to find the pile of weapons that Giles had brought with him right along with the books, and looked for something nice and slice capable.

"Buff?" Xander asked loudly from the other room.

"One second!" The battle axe looked kind of workable. It was nice and sharp on both sides but she wasn't trying to hack through scales here so it might be a bit like using a chainsaw to whittle a stake. But on the other hand she didn't have to worry about finesse too much as they didn't exactly seem the smart weapon wielding type of monster so maybe… Ah! Buffy took a look at two neat little toys she'd never come across before and despite the dire situation couldn't keep from grinning. Not her normal tools and a little bit showy to walk down the streets of Sunnydale with on a normal kind of day but at the moment they seemed just the thing. Moving back into the living room she held up her two new acquisitions with a grin on her face. "Giles where have you been hiding these? I've never seen them before."

"Those..." began the bewildered watcher. She was holding a pair of identical swords each with a gently tapering blade that came to a sudden point after about three feet. Neither of them looked particularly ornamental but with an extremely straight hand grip that appeared to be made out of black stone and only a small circular piece of metal between the blades and her fists working as hand guard they both managed to look extremely lethal. They also looked just big enough that it seemed very odd for Buffy to be comfortably holding two of them at the same time. "…are dueling swords that were used mostly by an obscure and extinct daemon clan. Quite fascinating really. That's actually a set, one sword for each of the duelers. They're not really heavy enough for any of the nastier daemons but still, remarkable workmanship. I picked them up from an obscure dealer in London last year for a particularly good price. The previous owner claimed that the clan daemons were heavily scaled and that they weren't actually using these to duel to the death with. I can only assume this is the reason they aren't larger and heavier like most true demonic blades…"

During his speech Buffy had been trying to figure out just what it was she was missing. It was like having a puzzle in her hands and knowing that there was a piece still absent and all she had to do was find it. They were nice and pointy, very well designed and balanced for chopping heads off with, and each had a handle just long enough to add an extra hand if she wanted that little bit of added oomph. Slowly she moved her thumb up just a little bit and then arranged her second and third fingers on two practically invisible depressions she'd just known would be there. She wrinkled her nose for a moment before squeezing all three fingers just so…

Giles stopped speaking abruptly when a six-inch steal spike shot out from the handle of the sword in her left hand. It was soon followed by another spike from the handle of the right one. Now satisfied Buffy looked up and grinned at him.

"Yes. Well. Or perhaps they did try to disembowel each other with them after all." Giles said in a faint voice.

Buffy smiled and again squeezed just the right spots to make the spikes disappear back into the hand grips. "Scabbards?"

"Yes. Quite right. Won't be a moment." By the time Giles had made it half way to the dining room his glasses were already receiving a thorough cleaning.

"So. Buffy. About that ending of the world?" Xander prompted. Oddly enough he still had one eye on the TV, apparently even an imminent apocalypse wasn't enough to deter him from the Simpsons in the middle of an episode.

"Yes, now that you've finished scaring us with your disturbing need for sharp pointy objects far too large to use in a house perhaps you could explain…" Anya huffed.

"They are, aren't they?" Buffy interrupted with furrowed eyebrows. "Giles! Bring some really sharp daggers with you too! Something I can cut a head off with!" She turned back and smiled her thanks at Anya.

"Yes. Well. As I was…"

"Here you are." Giles interrupted her this time while walking in and dropping two scabbards on the coffee table. They were each made with black leather covered in intricate silver designs making them far more ornamental than the swords they were meant to house. Really if it were possible for a scabbard to be considered fashionable these would definitely qualify. He had also dropped an adjustable harness in her lap and she could already see how the three could be attached together in pretty much any configuration she might want. If she did it just right she should be able to get them crossed over her back. The two twelve inch daggers he'd brought might not be much use but they were certainly worth a try. She'd have to manage good timing to safely chop off a head with one of those. "Now I believe you were about to inform us of our imminent deaths?"

"Right. You guys remember that corpse I mentioned? The one that got doused with blue gas and opened its eyes? Well I came across a few like it in town."

"That doesn't sound so bad." Willow commented.

"Well. I snapped the neck of one of them. I'm pretty sure I shattered the spine of the other and both of them had lots of broken bones. They just got right back up. Then five more of their buddies joined the party."

"Zombies?" Anya ventured. "Zombies aren't usually a problem. They have bad co-ordination and slow reflexes. Occasionally they like to eat brains but really that's not that uncommon. Did you know that many daemons consider brains a delicacy? Why once I even…"

"These were more like rabid dogs. They even kept trying to bite me. And never speak about brain food again please."

"Did any of them…" Giles started to stand.

"No. I didn't think that would be a good thing so I avoided having my flesh ripped apart by mouths in obvious need of vastly improved dental hygiene. In fact I'm feeling the sudden urge to start wearing lots of leather. Anyway I'm thinking decapitation. Does that sound about right to everyone?"

Some nodded. Some muttered that knocking something's head off would really kill just about anything though Anya felt the need to point out that Pyleans apparently required a full dismemberment. Buffy's mother who rarely received this much information quickly excused herself back to the kitchen looking slightly green and Tara really didn't look much better.

Having figured out the straps on the harness Buffy grabbed a leather jacket which she was loath to ruin, deciding that the added protection if one of them tried to bite her arms would justify the sacrifice. Then she proceeded to attach both swords to the harness on her back with one handle over either shoulder. The sheathes themselves were only attached near the top so she could tip the handle down and pull them smoothly and quickly out when needed. A quick foray upstairs and she had some leather pants though, unfortunately, the only pair she had were a dark read instead of a less noticeable black but they would have to do. Finally she strapped a dagger to each thigh and went back down the stairs for inspection.

Xander drooled, which got him smacked in the head by Anya. Everyone else just looked like they wondered why she was being so over the top. Normally she patrolled in the latest fashions with nothing more potent than a couple of wooden sticks.

"I don't get it. Why are you so worried about a couple of zombies?" Willow asked. "I mean yes, Zombies, bad, but still…"

"I don't know." Buffy admitted. And she didn't. Really. But she couldn't forget her dream and the painful sense of urgency that still rolled through her every time she remembered the sudden nighttime warning. She also couldn't forget Angels pained voice as he quietly told her about Cordelia's spontaneously exploding skull. "But it feels like the thing to do and I'm not taking chances. One thing I'm sure of is that I'm not going to kill these things with my bare hands." She looked around the room and suddenly noticed that Giles had disappeared.

"He's trying to get in touch with the Council." Willow explained.

"Oh. Right. Tell him that the zombies didn't set off my evil creature radar for some reason. My creepo-meter yes, but not my daemon monitor."

"Are you sure you don't want some backup Buffy? Because I'd be happy to grab an axe and…" Xander offered but Anya quickly interrupted him.

"No! Buffy can go out and get killed by the monsters but you're staying right here Xander. I forbid you to leave me alone."

"Hey..!"

"It's Ok Xander." Buffy smiled. "I'm doing this solo. I can outrun them but you probably can't and I don't trust us to go toe to toe without a way out until I know what we're dealing with. I'll be fine. I promise."

She smiled one last time at all the anxious faces, then slipped through the front door and into the darkness.

The street outside was quiet and the night air carried not even a whisper of the walking dead that had been recently pursuing her. Turning towards the town center she kept a close watch on every shadow with one plan firmly set in her mind - to teach the zombies just why it wasn't a good idea to try and pick on a slayer. She'd been walking the streets of Sunnydale for half an hour before she saw anything more ominous than an out of place shrub or one particular shifty looking tree. What she found was an odd gathering at any time of day much less the middle of the night. In the center of a neatly cut lawn huddled a cluster of shapes - two figures crouched over a third that was lying motionless on the ground.

Blinking to keep her eyes dry she slid one of the swords off her back and gave it an experimental twirl as she stalked forwards. She wasn't far away when one of the monsters finally looked up, its milky eyes reflecting the light from a near by street light. A single growl was the only warning before it attacked. It was depressing really, she didn't get the chance to issue even a single quip or pun. She doubted the things had enough brain cells left to appreciate them anyway. The first one seemed to be a middle aged nurse but a quick swing of one of her new favorite weapons knocked its head cleanly off and the body crumpled to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. Twisting she brought one of her feet up to knock back the second creature that had followed close behind. A negligent swing of her blade severed its head as well and it was over. The bodies unfortunatly didn't turn to dust, or slime, or anything else that could be easily ignored. The only concession that they seemed to give to convenience was the blatant lack of liquid blood... which seemed to have become thick and black at some point after their zombification

Taking a moment to breath she slowly approached the final body, stopping when she heard an odd clicking sound behind her. Turning around she found nothing there. Frowning she listened as the noise echoed again and looked down to see the jaws of one of the dismembered heads clicking madly, the last, and very disturbing she had to add, action it was capable of now that it was lacking a body. Not sure what to do about it she turned and looked at the elderly man they'd apparently been feasting on.

"Help me…" the wheezing voice was unexpected. They'd almost chewed off one of his arms and she could see straight through his stomach to his intestines. His skin was so pale it almost appeared to be white and blood spread in an ever expanding puddle beneath him. He looked at her with glazed eyes like she had all the answers and there was nothing she could do except watch and let him grab onto her hand as he breathed his last.

It took a surprisingly long thirty seconds for him to finish dying.

Buffy was stoically heading out to find the rest of the zombies when twenty more seconds later he sat up and snarled at her before propelling his elderly form at her with speed that belied not only his state of unliving but his apparent age. The dagger she'd grabbed by instinct and thrown embedded itself in his forehead and he fell right back to the grown without another sound. Letting out a breath she cautiously crept back to the now still body and kicked it, pretty much expecting it to jump back up and have at her. It didn't move however. Apparently while decapitation didn't do the job ramming something sharp through its skull did. Good to know. A little bit harder than ramming something through the heart but, hey, still a nice jabbing alternative to go with the hacking option. On the other hand…

They multiplied. Quickly. Suddenly the reason this could be an apocalypse became all to clear and she started sprinting to a payphone she knew was only two blocks further into town right beside a grocery store. Even the two rings it took to get an answer were nerve racking but she managed to stay calm. After all panicking might be a nice stress reliever but all it would do in the end was get her very, very dead.

"Hello?" She breathed a sigh of relief at the sound of her watcher's voice.

"Giles!"

"Buffy? Are you all right?"

"Yes. Giles. Just listen. This is bad. Really bad."

"I gathered as much. I haven't even managed to get through to the council yet. The lines are all busy for some reason and..."

"Giles they multiply. They're contagious. They go around trying to bite people and then those people get right back up and try to bite other people and its this whole biting thing where no one who dies stays down they just get right back up."

"Dear Lord…"

"I think he's on vacation - probably to another dimension according to Anya. Giles this is really bad."

"Buffy you must get back here at once and…"

"No. Giles I can kill these things. I just have to make sure they don't bite me. Chopping off their head works, well mostly, the head still tries to bite you but otherwise it works. Even better is if you stab them in the head. Are you listening Giles? Take out their brain and they go right down."

"Buffy you may be able to handle a few of them but if you're right you may quickly be dealing with a mob. How do you plan to manage when there are fifty of those things coming at you from every direction? Please listen to reason…"

"No Giles that's exactly why I have to stop them now. There might not be that many yet and if I can kill them now they won't have the chance to spread."

"Buffy…"

"Listen Giles. I've gotta run. Get Xander to board up the windows. Make sure they can't break in. I'll come back as soon as I can."

And with Giles protesting in the background she hung up the phone.

There were at least a hundred of them - a roiling mass of corpses bumping into each other as they wandered around the hospital parking lot. She wasn't quite sure why more of them hadn't left. She'd been waiting, prepared to ambush the next group that got the munchies and went looking for a snack but they'd just stayed there, probably far too many for her to take all together. Only ten had crossed her path as she wandered through the streets of Sunnydale, ten zombies that is, she'd dusted a couple of panicked vampires but they really hadn't seemed important anymore. Would they all move forward at once when the sun came up? Would they just stay there waiting for prey to come to them? The only way Buffy could think of to get them moving would be to play bait and she wasn't feeling nearly that suicidal yet. It was disappointing that the hospital didn't even have a proper fence around it or she could have simply locked the gate and contained them. She was currently lying flat on a near by shop watching them, trying to form a plan but coming up horribly blank. If she attacked they'd either kill her or scatter, either way the entire population of Sunnydale would wake up in the morning to a nasty surprise. Would it even take a day for most of the populace to end up dead? Two? How many would be smart enough to hide and how long could they keep it up?

By the time three AM rolled around she gave up. She didn't have anything resembling a plan. She hadn't even been able to help the few late night patients who'd tried to get in to the ER only to be dragged out of their cars and killed while their confusion paralyzed them. It was Hellmouth denial working against them. After all, the big mob had to be made up of people didn't it? It didn't matter if their eyes were seeing walking corpses that just meant that they'd obviously had far too much to drink. That was probably the thought process they were going through when the first hands smashed through their car windows and pulled them into the reach of biting mouths.

On her way home she didn't walk… she ran. She was sure that in another life she'd been the worlds shortest Olympic sprinter, or more accuratly it was just another perk with the Slayer package even if it was one that didn't get used very often. She rarely had to chase the monsters down. The monsters were usually arrogant enough to come to her all on their own. Two more wandering zombies had their skulls cracked open before they'd even noticed the silent form moving past them and then she was home. The lights were all on at the Summers residence on Revello Crescent. She could tell because light was creeping out between the boards that now covered the inside of every window. She wasn't even thinking when she went to open the door and found it lock, the noise eliciting several tense screams from the inhabitants and despite everything that was going on she almost found herself laughing.

"Guys. Open up!"

The door swung open immediately and she found herself looking into the very relieved eyes of her watcher. He was so relieved that despite the dried brain matter spattering her jacket and the two swords still held bare in her hands he reached out and hugged her. It was very un-British of him. "Thank God."

"Happy to see you too but can we please go inside before more corpses show up?"

Flustered he smiled self depreciatingly "Yes. Yes of course."

Buffy was only slightly surprised to see that they not only locked the door but barred it with a two by four using two impromptu brackets now mounted into the wall.

"Buffy!" A red blur shot at her from the living room and Buffy nearly chopped its head off before she realized what it was. Willow threw her arms around her and started mumbling into her neck. Buffy couldn't do anything but stand there and look confused.

"What happened?"

"You mean other than the zombies getting up and walking all over America? Not much." Xander piped up from his place on the couch. He never took his attention away from the large bowl of popcorn he was munching away at.

"Say again?"

"Its all over the news." Chirped Anya almost happily as if the end of the world was a good thing. It was like she sometimes forgot she was human now. "Your zombie problem isn't restricted to Sunnydale. They've had emergency reports going on telling everyone to stay in their homes. Except they don't really think they're dealing with Zombies. So far they think it's a bug or something though what insects have to do with anything is far beyond me."

"But how many people are going to check the news before they leave their house in the morning?" Whimpered Tara from where she was huddled in one of the chairs.

"Yes. Quite. The timing is horrible. People will get up, head to work, and get turned to zombies before they realize what's going on. Although its probably on the radio too which will help some people…" Giles commented.

"Giles these things are strong and persistant. Even if people stay home there's nothing to keep the zombies from smashing through windows to get at them." Moving into the kitchen she began grabbed some paper towels and headed to the sink intending to clean up her jacket only to find herself once again hugged with extreme prejudice. This time by her mother.

"I was so worried." Her mother lamented. Buffy simply hugged her back, not knowning what she could possibly say that might help.

"As I was saying." Giles moved into the kitchen and was quickly cleaning his glasses in response to the blatant show of unrestrained emotion, "It only gets worse. Though the news stations haven't reported it yet it only gets worse. This isn't limited to North America Buffy. When I reached the watcher's council they informed me that incidences have occurred almost everywhere in the world. Its ironic really. The world is ending and the Hellmouth we've spent so much time defending didn't play even the smallest part in its demise."

"So what do we do now?" Buffy turned and asked her watcher. He'd always had the answers in the past. That was his job. Answer man. She knew that any minute he'd come up with a way to find the source of the evil and destroy it at which point every single zombie would fall down properly dead or even better simply vanish as if it had never existed. That's the way it always worked…

"I'm afraid there's nothing we can do. I'm looking through my books to see if there's anything at all but, well, so far I've found nothing. We can't save the world this time Buffy. I'm afraid the world may already be well and truly lost."


	3. Dawn of the Dead

_**Chapter 3: The Dawn of the Dead**_

A day later she stared at the piece of paper covered with her Watcher's familiar scrawl and couldn't understand. The language was familiar, being english, and the words had meaning, but that he'd held them back from her was incomprehensible.

He'd given up on his books some time mid morning and hadn't mentioned them again. That was the worst part. He'd found something but kept it to himself. Ever since he'd been sitting with everyone else, watching the television as the government tried to pretend everything wasn't falling apart. Giles never watched Television. He did own one but generally it was buried so far behind stacks of books that it had been years before she'd found out it existed. Given this she'd found it somewhat suspicious when he suddenly abandoned his beloved reading material to watch the depressingly consistent news reports on the television.

She'd given up on the broadcasts after only an hour finding them far too frustrating to watch. It made their fears when fighting Master Nest or Angelus pale in comparison and mankind was never going to be able to forget this apocalypse and pretend it hadn't happened. The dead were walking the earth not just in Sunnydale or in the United States but everywhere across the globe. No one knew how and no one knew why but by the time people had figured out that something horrible was happening humanity had already lost its status as the dominant species on the planet to a bunch of rotting corpses. Safe areas in and around various large cities were posted by the emergency network and just as quickly word came in that they'd been lost. No one seemed to have any idea what had caused the epidemic. She didn't know if there was anyone still trying to figure it out or if all else had been forgotten in the face of questionable survival. Closer to home the occasional scream or vehicle crash sounded out across Sunnydale but for the most part the mouth of hell had gone quiet. None of them had been curious enough to look out one of the unboarded upstairs windows. No one really wanted to know how bad it was. The others because they were simply terrified and Buffy, well, because if she saw it she'd have to do something about it and the few times she'd thought of going out to try and help the others had practically held her down and begged her not to go.

Shaking her head she looked back at the passage and wondered again why Giles would keep their first possible lead to himself. Standing up she headed back to the living room, the notebook held open in her hands. "Giles?"

"Yes Buffy?" He looked up from his seat on the couch. His face was pale and drawn and she had to wonder when he'd last had sleep.

"And I fear that the gods themselves shall become arrogant and in their power forget the free will of man." Buffy read from the notes. Even to her own ears her voice sounded flat and hollow. "I have had these visions, ones I fear were not sent to me by the higher powers. The seers name them blasphemy and my order confines me lest my words be heard by those who might listen." It was her seventh time reading it though, the first that wasn't silent. Each time it made her feel like doing some God cursing herself but she doubted they were still around to listen. "Perhaps it is a message that the gods refuse to accept for I can feel its truth even as I do not understand it, so it is now sent through me lest they continue to ignore it. Arrogance the others proclaim, blasphemy, and I can not disagree yet still I can not repent. I am lost. I am a messenger without course or direction to those with ears to listen and the hands and minds to take action and even if I found them I fear their hearts would remain as closed as my own. But I cannot let it be forgotten lest the things I have seen hold dangerous truths. Perhaps, someday, it will make its way to those that might stave off an end of days brought not by daemon, god, or even by magic, but by man himself."

Buffy finished reading and looked up solemnly. Everyone had been listening by the time she finished – the silence only broken by the sound of a desperate reporter on the TV who sounded not unlike a person slowly losing his mind. "Giles what is this?"

"Oh. That." He replied weakly.

"Yes. This!" She huffed, tossing the notebook into his lap. What had he been thinking?

"I'm sure," Xander interrupted "that our favorite librarian had a perfectly good reason for keeping that to himself."

"Yes, well, thank you for the vote of confidence Xander. Buffy, it seems that not every book of prophecy burned itself out. There were several that were never really prophecies, apparent fakes. This would fall into a similar category and unlike many others it was a known fake discredited long ago and kept around only as a curiosity. " He moved forward to take the paper and she held it away.

"It obviously caught your attention or I wouldn't have found it in your notes."

Giles gave up and put his head in his hands with an air of hopelessness that she hadn't seen since the death of Jenny Calendar. His reply sounded desperate. "Well you read it surely you can see that its far from conclusive. Thousands of books of prophecy are just as mad and had absolutely nothing to do with what's going on now."

"These would be the books that turned into small bonfires right?" Buffy replied petulantly.

"The rest of the first part of the book is just more rambling in Latin about how the gods would be wrong and fate would be circumvented by man unless the gods listened to him. But even he admits that his visions could be considered the worst kind of blasphemy. He wasn't even convinced that they were real Buffy."

"Well so far it sounds like he got it right to me Giles - enough for you to read the rest of the book anyway. Fate being… circumnavi…"

"Circumvented"

"That. What else would you call every book the Powers ever wrote on how things were going to happen going up in flames at the exact, same, time?"

"I agree with you. There's nothing truly informative in the first chapter however and I haven't read the rest. " Giles admitted.

"And why," Buffy growled "Haven't you? The Giles I know would be like a dog with a bone with this, or a dog with several bones. Nice big tasty ones even."

The last thing she was expecting was for him to start laughing.

"I'm sorry did I say haven't? I meant to say can't. You see this was a book that many viewed as defying Gods' ordained path for mankind. A book that claimed man's fate would be beyond their ability to control and that we had to be prepared for it. Whatever order he was a part of didn't want the wrong people to read this, to hear it, but wasn't quite prepared to destroy it either. So they made sure that no one who wasn't supposed to read the book could. They did this by coding the book and devising a key to understanding it. If someone stole only the book they'd still be lost without the key. Its described in the first chapter and I imagine they were traditionally kept in separate locations. We don't have the key so everything else becomes irrelevant."

Buffy groaned and fell into a chair across from him. "Sort of like a nose thumbing nah nah to whoever took the book?"

"Yes I suppose if you want to be juvenile about it." Giles snarked.

"So we get the key." She stated matter of factly. It was their first real clue since the entire mess had started and she wasn't about to let it get thrown away.

"We can't Buffy. I made some phone calls before the lines went down and one of the field watchers thought they had seen it in an antique store in LA several months ago. He thought it was a cheep curio at the time but recognized the description however his confidence in the match wasn't high and even if it was months ago that he came across it. That kind of a trip would be suicide now. And even if it is the correct artifact it would probably tell us nothing of use. This has already happened and we cannot prevent it."

"It's all we've got Giles!" Buffy almost yelled. Why couldn't he see that she couldn't just sit around watching the world end? That wasn't who she was. It wasn't who any of them were. "Now just tell me where this shop is, what the key looks like, and I'll go get it."

"Buffy the city is likely congested with mobs of walking corpses. Just how do you expect to get there without getting eaten?" Giles had raised his voice now too. She couldn't remember the number of times that had happened. Less than five. She knew it was less than five. "It's a fool's errand Buffy."

"Then I guess I'm a fool." She responded quietly. "I'm also the Slayer. This is what I do. I'll go and get it and come back. Is there a picture?"

"Yes there's a picture." Giles replied after a moment sounding defeated, as if he'd just listened to her declare a death sentence on herself. "How exactly do you plan to get there? You know you're not a good driver at the best of times Buffy and there's very little chance the way will be clear."

It was a fair point but she wasn't about to let herself be dissuaded. If she had to she'd walk to LA. "I'll improvise. I'm going to get packed Giles. Meanwhile you need to make me a copy of that key. The picture I mean."

The sound of a clearing throat made both of their heads spin to where several forgotten faces had apparently been listening wide-eyed to the entire argument.

"If you want the zombies to come find us and kill us we could all just get on top of the roof and scream a little. I mean the shouting will probably work but that would just be quicker." Willow commented with a smile.

"Sort of like a zombie dinner bell." Xander felt the need to add.

"I'd really rather not be eaten." This and a snarl was Anya's only response. Tara simply nodded in agreement.

"Right. Sorry. Won't happen again." Was Giles' only response before he slipped out of the room.

And so she'd gotten packed, and her watcher had drawn her a picture as a parting gift. Everyone else took turns either trying to convince her of just how insane she was being or offering to come with her if only to act as chauffeur. Her mother had actually begged her not to go and the resulting conversation had involved copious tears before it reached the inevitable conclusion. She didn't really listen to any of them as they were simply ingoring the core truth of their situation. It had to be done. She was pretty sure that just staying put was the equivalent to sitting around and waiting to die and this wasn't a search and destroy mission, it was a retrieval, and she was pretty sure she'd be able to move faster without anyone else coming along for the trip. She wore leather again though if they'd had any she'd have gladly put on a suit of chain mail. The only alternative was to wear the padding Giles used when they sparred and she had no intention of ever in her entire life looking that ridiculous. She did however need to find something less colorful in the near future. She wasn't sure how well these things could see but for all she knew they might react to her red pants with the same interest a rampaging bull would. A black sweater was covered by the same black jacket, but this time she had added sharp pointy objects everywhere she could now that they'd been demonstrated one hundred percent effective. One in each boot, the two strapped to her thighs and two in conveniently located pockets. A backpack lay on top of the sword harness, filled with nothing other than bottles of water or high calorie food, the kind you didn't have to cook or worry about going bad. The fact that her selection completely emptied out their supply of junk food made Xander pout for the entire thirty minutes preceding her departure. Just for an added measure of safety she'd decided to leave through her bedroom window. If she didn't go out the front door then nothing could get in the front door. So she thought anyway, and it couldn't hurt. The others had all just looked at her like they never expected to see her again even when she promised to come back, telling them several times not to worry because it might take some time to make her way through LA.

And so, with willow and her mother both staring tearfully after her she dropped down to the ground outside her house on a typical sunny afternoon on the hell mouth and took careful stock of her surroundings. Nothing ran out and attacked her, something she generally considered of the good. There was no sign of any other life either though. She could see some cars with their windows smashed in and covered with blood. One house down the street even had half a Volvo sticking through the living room window. The world, however, seemed entirely dead. She briefly considered taking her mother's car before discarding the idea. She even considered trying the cars of some of her neighbors' before she gave up on that too. She needed transportation and she sucked at driving cars. Maybe it was time she tried out something new. Without any better ideas she set out for a local dealership. Given the current climate she was pretty sure everything would be available at bargain basement prices and if she couldn't come up with anything better than a car, she could at least come up with something more durable. Maybe a nice big SUV… or better yet a tank.

The trip to the vehicle lot was almost anti-climactic. Buffy liked her apocalypses violent and noisy. This disturbing silence was just giving her a severe case of the wiggins and she really wasn't enjoying it. The dealership itself however was an entirely different story and she silently cursed herself for jynxing it. As she got closer to the large lot filled with shiny new vehicles she spotted at lest twenty or thirty corpses wandering between them. It might have looked like they were just trying to decide what they wanted to test drive if it weren't for the gaping wounds and broken limbs almost every one of them appeared to suffer from. Near the compacts she spotted a man who wandered from cheap car to cheap car and kept tripping on his own intestines in the process. She had to spend a quiet several minutes just trying to not throw up after seeing that.

The lot was just on the edge of the down town area and a little further away on the main drag she could see more of the same. Down town Sunnydale was beginning to look like it was in the middle of a festival honoring the recently, yet still mobile, deceased and she doubted she'd be welcomed as anything other than a party favor. The Zombies in the lot were bad, especially if they attracted the attention of other corpses little more than a block away. On the upside she had lots of cars to work with so they shouldn't have an easy time mobbing her once got past the fence if she kept to the high ground.

It wasn't like she hadn't been getting bored anyway. It was definitely time to move on to the action portion of the afternoon's entertainment. Gripping the hilts of both her swords she quickly slid them free and couldn't keep from grinning at the really lethal ringing sound they made as they slid past the metal band at the top of their sheathes. Then she frowned. While very cool it actually had a severe downside as evidenced by the numerous corpses suddenly heading towards the building corner she'd been peeking around. Even worse, apparently death didn't damage their hearing at all as she'd gotten the attention of more than just the zombies in the lot. They were popping out of buildings that she'd assumed were completely empty and soon she'd be in the middle of an undead Mardi-gras.

Not good on a very cosmic scale.

And realizing the stupidity of her not-so-much-a-plan and that she was surrounded by insurmountable odds she did what any good slayer would. She ignored the odds and started moving.

It was the first time she'd used both swords at once but her superior strength helped her maintain firm control over the two heavy blades as she danced around reaching arms and slavering mouths leaving decapitated bodies and chattering skulls behind her. She was surrounded by the splatter of congealed blood and the shrieks of walking corpses and everything else faded away into irrelevance. This wasn't a fight that needed finesse in the usual manner. It was a fight that required her to keep moving closer to her goal, never getting stuck in a crowd and never missing a target. She quickly severed one neck after another allowing her movements to spin her from one sweep of a blade to the next as she tried to keep anything from taking her from behind and tried to keep moving towards the general direction of her goal. She didn't have time to focus on her victims. The slavering maw of a fat businessman which was bisected when her aim slipped and he only lost the top half of his head passed on remarked. The bespectacled old woman who must undoubtedly have been someone's grandmother but now lacked arms was kicked fifteen feet away and forgotten even as two teenagers she might have gone to school with lost their heads in the most final of ways.

Her first slip was nearly her last as a small wiry zombie with most the skin torn from its face slipped under her guard, its teeth clamping down on thick leather and slipping as it tried to tear its way into her stomach, far too close for her to use the spinning blades that at that moment had just felled two more of its fellow dead. Dropping the sword in favor of fists or a dagger would get her killed by the five other zombies only meters away and without recourse she reacted on pure instinct, squeezing the hilt of the sword in her right hand in just the right way, and pounded the side of the creature's head with the spike that suddenly descended from the bottom of her hand. The fists which had latched onto her went lax and slipped free and she kicked it away and dashed free of the small mob that had formed in her brief moment of indecision. After that she settled into a rhythm of slashing and spiking even as the crowd thickened and tried to press in and crush her.

She felt more like a butcher than a slayer by the time she finally found reached the edge of the now almost empty car lot. Surrounded by dead bodies trying to crawl over the decapitated corpses left in her wake she turned away before they could reach her. With an unladylike grunt she jumped up and threw one of her swords over the fence, using the same hand to swing herself up and over beyond the immediate reach of the hands now grasping at her from below.

Once she was on the other side the corpses only took a moment to move for the open gate half way down the fence, still intent on reaching her, with a dissapointing display of lingering intelligence. She snatched her dropped sword from the ground before sprinting towards the front door of the dealership, all the while praying that it was open. Not really praying of course because despite everything she'd seen in her life Buffy had never been the religious type. It was odd really. After seeing the effects of a cross on a vampire she still couldn't bring herself to believe in a benign loving god. As zombies still in the lot came after her she vaulted to the top of the cars using them as a safe highway, her sword swiping at any zombie that tried to follow her on top of the vehicles.

Dropping from the last car and slamming through the thankfully unlocked dealership door she closed it behind her and seeing no other way to lock it shoved her swords through the handles. Moments later a dark haired and bloody woman in undoubtedly expensive business attire threw herself at the doors. The glass held firm and the swords prevented the doors from opening more than a crack. More zombies followed all of them pounded on the glass like wild animals. Staring into their filmy eyes she couldn't help but wonder how many of them had believed in god. Had it done them any good in the end? Were their souls in heaven or trapped in their rotting shells waiting for someone like her to set them free?

Shaking her head she looked around the large room. The huge glass windows that made up the front of the dealership seemed to be reinforced - either that or the corpses simply weren't up to the task. Now pressed against every window they were all staring in at her, slamming their fists against the barrier and moaning their displeasure. Inside the place seemed deserted except for bright shiny new cars that once upon a time when she was a self absorbed teenager she'd have given an arm and a leg to own. Or better yet, to have a boyfriend who owned. The very thought made her cringe. Definitely not her proudest stage of life.

Wandering around she didn't get any ideas. She really had to admit that her previous attempts at driving had gone… questionably. Her hope had been to find something big and solid that wouldn't protest a little creative sideswiping... not to mention that could barrel through the crowd outside. Unfortunately none of the nifty vehicles looked like they'd be any better than her mom's car and given how much work it had been to get inside the result was very depressing. Staring back and forth despondently between the poor selection and the rotting corpses that she was now pretty sure were laughing at her she was tempted to just sit down and cry for a bit. Not tempted enough to actually do it of course but someone had obviously forgotten to put a limit on just how cruel the universe was allowed to be.

Without a firm choice in mind she figured she'd have to find the keys regardless. It didn't matter which vehicle she decided on if she couldn't start it. None of them had the keys in the ignition of course. That would have been far too easy with the way life had been going lately – no free rides for Buffy. Well, except for the one she was about to take without paying for it first which completely invalidated the saying but she knew what she'd meant when she'd thought it and in the scheme of things did anything else really matter?

Keys mattered. Keys she didn't have and without which she would be going no where. Taking one more look at the moaning army outside she had to wonder again just how long she had before enough of them showed up to break in through sheer mass alone. She really didn't want to think about it so instead she'd go back to thinking about keys and where exactly it was that they'd keep the keys for vehicles on the showroom floor.

A search of the offices of the salesmen turned up nothing except the occasional license plate and an excessive number of automobile photos. This left only a single door marked 'staff' which she casually strolled through. She was hardly staff but, really, she doubted the owner was in any condition to object.

The growling corpse that slammed into her as soon as she stepped through the door proved her wrong. Lying on the floor with its snarling teeth reaching for her throat she shoved one of her arms between it and her face only to feel its jaws clamp down on her. Hard. It had its teeth around her arm and it was biting her and god was that all it took? Did they have to kill you to turn you into one of them or did it just need to take a good chunk out of you?

The corpse slammed into the plaster so hard that it left a man shaped impression in the wall. A feral shrieking sound came from its throat only to be cut off abruptly by a very sharp knife propelled with all the momentum a panicked slayer could manage. By the time the knife exited straight through the other side of his skull and embedded itself in the wall the zombie had forgotten any previous desire to feast and fallen to the floor, never to walk again.

"Oh god." Her arm felt like it had been put in a vice and she found herself wondering morbidly, wondering just how badly it had hurt her, wondering how long it would take to become one of them and if she was already dying. To think she'd laughed when they implied the trip was a suicide mission and meanwhile she hadn't even made it out of town. Why couldn't she stop breathing so hard? Was that how it started? Death by excessive breathing? Or maybe she was just panicking. She'd heard of hyperventilating before but really that was a Willow thing not a Buffy thing and god why did everything seem so out of focus? Dropping to the floor she began wondering if maybe that was how it started. Lots of heavy breathing and light headedness.

To think she'd always been terrified of becoming a vampire. What a laugh. Really in comparison at least vampires could still be pretty when they walked around dead. Zombies would just stand around and rot. It wasn't only horrible it was completely disgusting as well. How could she have been so stupid? Buffy watched TV. Ok she didn't watch it often but even she knew that the cops always assumed there was something bad in the next room until after they'd made sure there wasn't. They certainly didn't just wander around willy nilly waiting for someone to kill them.

She looked at her arm. Wondering how long it would take. Wondering if she wouldn't have been better off if it had ripped her throat out on its first try. Then she was just wondering why there wasn't any blood. She was really quite sure that there should be blood, really sure, but all she could find were small rips in her jacket. The leather jacket she'd intentionally put on before leaving because she figured it was a bit more protection than anything else she had. The leather jacket that it had tried to rip through with its teeth, to tear away the thick material in the sleeves and… failed.

There were small rips in the leather and it had obviously been making progress but she didn't see any blood. Slamming the door shut to what now looked like a back office full of filing cabinets and drawers and other things she really didn't care about right now she did a quick check to make sure she hadn't missed anything else. When she was satisfied there wasn't another corpse hiding in a supply closet she rapidly dropped her jacket to the floor and then pulled her sweater off over her head. Staring at her arm, rubbing her other hand up and down the area where it had tried to feed on her she found nothing but wonderful, horribly bruised, but completely unbroken skin.

Buffy had always been fond of leather. In excessive quantities it could be a bit much but really, sometimes there was nothing else quite like it when you wanted to make a statement. From now on however she would worship leather. For the rest of her life she was so going to bow down every morning and give thanks to the great cow god in the sky for providing leather to all the poor needy people of the earth. Maybe she'd give it a prayer now. It was never too soon to find religion. She'd start just as soon as she figured out why her eyes were so wet.

It took several minutes for her to finally calm down and get dressed again. She locked away the event as a learning experience and swore silently to herself that she would never ever tell anyone what had happened here. Not that she'd done something so careless. Not that she, the Slayer, had almost fainted from hysteria. Certainly not that she'd spent several minutes hugging her jacket and barely resisting the urge to verbally thank it for protecting her. The only reason she hadn't kissed it was that it still had yucky zombie slobber on it.

She'd come into the office for a reason but it had completely escaped her by this point. She'd gone to the dealership for a reason she remembered that much. For transportation… to L.A… which required keys. Keys which were hopefully hiding somewhere in the large office she was now hiding in and which was about to get oh so thoroughly ransacked. Several minutes later she finally opened the right cupboard to find it filled with nothing but the elusive keys. In fact it had so many keys that it was mind boggling. Fortunately all of them were clearly labeled and all she had to do was pick a preferred method of escaping this now completely wasted near death experience. Really, she should have just taken her mothers car to begin with and saved herself the trauma.

It was while trying to decide between the two SUVs she'd seen in the show room, neither of which looked nearly as tank like as she'd pictured in her head, that she glanced out the window which faced onto the back parking lot of the dealership. It wasn't the parking lot itself which caught her attention. It was what was behind it. She couldn't help herself, she just stopped and stared at the smooth lines and shiny exteriors all the while thinking they were perfect.

It was also a bad idea, she told herself, but a voice in the back of her pointed out that really, would one more hurt at this point? They would certainly solve the problem of navigation. She wouldn't be dealing with cars either and just because she couldn't drive a car didn't mean she couldn't drive one of the bright shiny objects calling out to her. Ok so they wouldn't be a good choice to plow down corpses with but if she was dealing with anything short of a full mob it'd sure to let her get around them. That of course assumed she could figure out how to steer one but really, how hard could it be? Better yet the path seemed clear without a single zombie between her and her goal all of the dead apparently having decided that the front door was the only door. Coming to a decision she grabbed a broom and committed to her choice.

When she left the office to head back to the main show room she found herself being far more cautious. First she listened at the door, then she drew two of her daggers before finally venturing out. The swords still held the main doors closed but the moaning hoard had grown to twice its original size. In some places they were even crawling atop one another to reach her and even as she walked quickly back towards the front doors she was sure she could hear the faint sound of glass beginning to give way. Carefully replacing her swords with the broom she cleaned them off and put them away before turning and sprinting back towards the office. Closing that door behind her she took another quick look to make sure her path was still clear, kept one of her daggers on hand, and then quietly opened the staff entrance while staying ready to force it closed if necessary.

She only took a moment to sigh in relief when she found the back lot still walking dead free and sprinted as quickly and quietly as possible through the parking lot and over the fence.

Buffy had never really noticed her new destination before, the vicinity of the car dealership normally abandoned at night and not being on any of her regular patrol routes. If she had she probably wouldn't have given it any thought. Now she found herself utterly fascinated with the fact that the car dealership was located right beside a motorcycle dealership. She really didn't know anything about motorbikes but she figured that if she couldn't find something to barrel through the zombies with she could at least find something to go around them with instead.

Compared to her trek to the front of the car dealership this trip was quick and quiet. The five zombies she had to dispatch on the way barely registering – the noise of their deaths seamingly covered by the far more vocal hoard still trying to gain entrance to the building she'd left behind. This front door had been locked and she'd had to force her way inside which unfortunately involved smashing through one of the glass doors that was apparently designed to be unsmashable given the shear amount of effort she'd had to put into doing so. Thankfully it wasn't slayer proof but she did end up leaving a clear entrance for any zombies that might follow behind.

To her relief the prettiest looking piece of machinery she'd ever seen was sitting right in the middle of the show room floor waiting for her and as if to make up for her near death experience in the car dealership the owner had even been kind enough to leave the bike with a full tank of gas, something that seemed odd for a vehicle on a showroom floor but she wasn't going to argue something so much to her benefit. It was fate's way of telling her to go for it Buffy decided. Never mind that fate had apparently turned out to be completely and utterly cruel and that every single vehicle in the entire display room might be kept with a full tank of gas for all she knew, that wasn't important. Conveniently enough they even had a very nice silver helmet to go with the equally silver bike and Buffy was, at long last, ready.

Settling herself in the seat she grasped the handlebars and turned the hastily acquired key while holding her breath. Her new toy didn't disappoint. She could feel the solid vibrations beneath her and practically taste the gentle rumbling of the motor. This improved her mood drastically. Of course she didn't know what to do next. She wasn't even sure how she was going to get out of the area without getting mobbed. This all assumed she could figure out how to steer. Looking at all the options she quickly came to various conclusions, possibly incorrect, about what did what. It really couldn't be that much harder than riding a normal bike anyway. It was the same just… faster, with thicker tires, and automated peddling. Sitting down and pretending she was completely sure of herself she took one last look at her options, nodded, and promptly drove the bike directly towards one of the large windows.

During this action she discovered several things. The first was that, surprisingly, motorcycle's really were the way to go. All that extra padding between her and the world must have upset her inner slayer because on the much more open bike everything seemed a whole lot more natural. Driving a car was something she'd had to try and learn... driving a bike was just something she did. The second was that driving through a reinforced window no matter how large was not the smartest decision in the world. The impact nearly threw her from the bike, and she had the sneaking suspicion that the window had almost refused to get out of the way. It had in the end of course and she was soon turning out of the lot towards the highway which required her to first pass the car dealership. The mob of running dead came out of the lot towards her and without any better ideas she just drove right through them, elbowing one that came far too close and kicking off another one that tried to grab onto her leg. It took her several blocks to get away from the corpses sprinting after her and then she quickly discovered the biggest problem with driving a nice shiny bike through the streets of a zombie-infested Sunnydale.

It was loud. Not only was it loud but it was the only vehicle on the streets and every walking corpse in town seemed to hear her coming and try to greet her as she passed. In the end the only way to stay ahead of the bodies that tried to swarm her was to go faster until soon she was barreling down city streets trying to avoid vehicles that had crashed or been simply abandoned in the middle of the road as well as the moaning dead that apparently wanted a taste of her. The faster she went the less likely they could react to the noise she was making and the more likely it was that she'd end up smashed into a building long before she ever reached the city limits. By the time she'd traveled a mere ten blocks it sounded like there were at least a thousand moaning souls following behind her.

Slowing to turn towards where she hoped the highway was she found her path blocked off by a couple of dozen figures rushing towards her from a crashed bus. Each of them snarled at her with a look completely out of character with the blood stained habits they all wore. Not wanting to mutilate a group of dead nuns but also not wanting to get dragged off her bike she used one hand to steer while the other slipped one of the swords from her back and slashed it from one of side to the other. The hands that had reached for her let go just as quickly, the powerful swing having lopped the heads off their owners and she accelerated past before any others could have their try at her.

The rest of the trip to the highway was outside the downtown area and far less populated. Finally able to leave most of her pursuers far behind she breathed a sigh of relief and soon found herself driving on an empty road with no sign of anyone dead or alive as far as she could see.

She savored the feeling knowing it wouldn't last long. If Sunnydale was so overwhelmed then in comparison L.A. would undoubtedly be far, far worse.


	4. Superhero

_**Chapter 4: Superhero**_

Peeking over the edge of the roof Buffy observed a dozen of the walking dead shambling by and muffled a curse. Really to look at the things you'd never guess how lively they could be when they spotted potential food. When you wanted them to take their time they sprinted like athletes and when you wanted them to get out of your way so you could sneak? Well, then they strolled along like invalids. Still keeping her eye on them she saw the group perk up and suddenly run off down a side street as if the dinner bell had been rung and she felt an involuntary twinge of pity for whoever had garnered their attention. Taking one last quick look around the dusk-lit intersection she slithered over the edge of the roof and dropped down from the top of the record store. When her feet hit the ground she let her self keep falling into a shoulder roll to lessen the impact and came out of the maneuver in a sprint while trying to keep her foot steps as soft as she could manage on the hot asphalt. Reaching the convenience store across the street she didn't even consider braving the interior and instead scaled right up the side of the wall, the momentum with which she threw herself at and up it getting her past the first floor to the bottom of a window for what she assumed was an apartment above. From there she took only a moment to lift her feet to the window still and steady herself in the precarious position before launching herself high enough to grab the edge of the roof. Once safely over the edge she flattened herself to the rough surface and waited, listening for the moans and shrieks of the dead.

Getting to L.A. had turned out to be the easy part. The highway had been barren, abandoned by all but the occasional group of survivors fleeing the large metropolis in hopes of finding someplace rural and zombie free. A few had caught her eye as she drove past and every single one of them had a look, a look that said they thought Buffy was completely insane and headed in a very wrong direction. Even the highway inside the city itself wasn't too bad with the occasional easily avoided zombie wandering around on its own. It was when she reached the exit that she found herself beset on by the first not so insignificant group of mobile corpses. She'd had to drive right through them and into the edges of the commercial district she'd been looking for in order to avoid getting mobbed. Unfortunately that was as far as she'd gotten. The rumbling of the bike's engine had acted like a clarion call and the dead had teemed forth from every direction to devour her, far more of them than she could possibly deal with and thickest in the direction she'd needed to travel. She'd been forced to abandon her shiny new vehicle beside a Starbuck's as she scaled to the roof and hid herself, hoping they'd lose interest when the hoard arrived and found nothing of immediate nutritional value. At this point she'd learned a valuable lesson about the recently deceased. They were horribly, inconveniently, inconsiderately stubborn. After an hour on the roof they were still milling around on the ground, waiting for her to show her face or make a run for it. Eventually she'd forced herself to abandon her ride and jump to the next building, thankful that the district was an older one mostly made up of close buildings with flat roofs. She sent a silent promise to her bike that she would be coming back for it.

That was how it had started. She'd hurdle the gap from one building to the next, occasionally scale up one side of a building or down another. It was an insane way to travel, and her progress was glacial, but every time she considered dropping to the pavement and continuing her trip at a quicker pace she'd note one or two undead wandering aimlessly near by. She could imagine how it would happen. They'd see her, or hear her, and moan. Then they'd begin running after her only to find themselves dispatched in short order. A few walking corpses were in no way a match for an experienced slayer. But it wouldn't be the first few that would finish her because those moans would attract the corpses down the street, and the ones in the buildings not yet motivated to break their way free, and soon after she'd be dealing with a mob pressing in on her until one of them got a solid grip on her and pulled her down.

She shuddered, the image of teeth sinking into her throat once again motivation to stay high and stay quiet as she let her right hand rest over the already fading bruises on her arm from her earlier folly. It was very un-slayer-like and the idea of cowering so they wouldn't see her was quickly becoming far more disgusting than the walking corpses themselves. But any alternative would break the first rule – don't die. You couldn't accomplish anything when you were dead. Going over the top of buildings may seem slow, not to mention tiring, but she would undeniably arrive at her destination sooner if she didn't get herself killed during transit.

None of this logic buried the urge to just drop to the ground and announce herself, prove that they didn't scare her even one little bit. The desire to show them what a slayer really was even if they didn't have enough life left in them to care. She wondered how long forcibly reminding herself of the inevitable death that would follow would stem the strange urge and scared herself all over again when she realized she didn't have an answer to the question.

Focusing on the more immediate problem she decided that her brief foray to the ground to get across the intersection hadn't drawn undesired attention. She then began moving in a crouch towards the next building. Four blocks down, seven more to go, and she was still debating whether to continue after dark or find someplace to bunk down until morning. She wasn't sure who the lack of light would hinder more, herself or the zombies. As a slayer she had pretty good night vision but she only had to miss seeing one zombie for everything to go wrong. Several roof tops away there she could see what looked like an apartment building towering over its neighbors. It was nine, maybe ten stories high and looked slightly rundown but in no way slummish. It occurred to her that she could check the windows, find an apartment that was empty, and barricade herself in for the night. Maybe she could even find a phone and call home. If she was lucky there'd even be a stocked kitchen – the idea of hot food set her stomach to rumbling and settled the matter for her. Food won hands down.

The first window she looked in made her glad she was being stealthy as she found herself observing the zombie of a slightly overweight woman wearing an apron continually walking towards the closed apartment door only to bounce off and try again. Buffy idly wondered if it would ever think to try the fire escape before moving onward and upward to the next floor, leaving the trapped zombie to its fate. The next apartment didn't show signs of anything dangerous, none of the living impaired greeted her sneak peek, but unfortunately neither did anything useful like couches, chairs, or phones. What the apartment was full of looked suspiciously like refuse and she wrinkled her nose in disgust only a little bit curious as to why the place had been turned into a garbage dump. Mostly she was just thinking 'ew'. Onward and upward, the third time would surely be the charm.

What greeted her view through the final window was a relief - a clean cozy looking living room that showed all indications of being unoccupied. She briefly considered banging on the window just in case something was hiding out of view but dismissed the idea. Better to clear the apartment quietly than draw notice from something beyond the front door. Wrenching the window open she slithered inside, slid two of her daggers into her hands and waited for a challenge. After several minutes of standing still where nothing responded to her entrance she carefully closed the window before scoping out the kitchen. It was small, and just like the living room looked friendly and lived in. Her stomach reminded her that she was hungry, making growling noises she was sure would attract zombies from blocks away but she shushed it and moved on. It would have to wait – she wasn't safe yet and she wasn't taking any chances this time.

A short hall way led off from the living room and was home to three doors, two on one side and one on the other. She listened carefully at each before opening it, going so far as to knock lightly to see if something inside would respond to the sound. The first was a washroom, something almost as welcome as food though she wasn't sure how safe it would be to run the water or flush the toilet. The second door, on the opposite side of the hallway led to a bedroom with definite feminine overtones given the pale pastel blues and the frilly queen sized bed that she immediately decided had her name on it. The closet was open and filled with casual clothes as well as several summer dresses. Buffy was feeling just paranoid enough that she stopped before leaving to check for a monster under the bed – despite what generations of parents had told their children she wasn't about to assume one wouldn't be there.

Finally she moved to the last door and once again listened carefully and after hearing nothing tapped on it gently. When still nothing responded she twisted the knob and gave it a slight push before stepping back at the ready while the door swung slowly open. The small bedroom it revealed had obviously belonged to a child. Posters of sports teams and super heroes covered the walls making it almost impossible to discern the green paint hidden beneath. A small bed which she imagined was too big for a five year old and too small for a teenager was pushed against one wall and several sets of shelves were covered mostly with toys and games rather than books. She didn't want to think about what had undoubtedly happened to the kid who'd lived there – anymore than she wanted to acknowledge that a significant portion of the zombies she'd seen outside over the course of the day had been suspiciously short. They hadn't been children, they'd been midgets. She was completely and undeniably sure of this and no other option or opinion was required. It wouldn't accomplish anything. Once again she checked under the bed, judging monsters far more likely to set up shop under a child's bed than a parent's, but again found nothing. She'd actually relaxed a bit by the time she reached for the closet door already knowing what she was going to find.

She was quite surprised when amidst the clothes and expected sports paraphernalia she found a screaming body, one of her daggers was about to slide under the creatures jaw before she realized that it wasn't trying to eat her but was instead cringing away in fear. Clenching the muscles in her arm she stopped its motion with the blade only a few inches away from piercing the skull of what she suddenly realized was a living, breathing, and terrified young boy who couldn't be more than 10 years old – a living breathing young boy whom she'd almost killed. The image of a dark alley filled with adrenalin and excitement and horror flashed through her memory, the dark eyes of a shocked friend turned killer staring into her own, passed through her mind before she got a grip on herself. She dropped the daggers from her suddenly shaking hands before reaching out to the child.

"Quiet. Please be quiet." She murmured as he stared at her with wet eyes. He had scraggly brown hair in desperate need of washing combined with delicate features fitting his young age and he just looked at her in shock, blue eyes calming when she sunk to her knees to avoid towering over him as much as her own disappointing stature would allow. He also stopped hollering which was a good thing, though she figured that by now the damage had already been done. When the thumping began on the apartment door she knew she'd been right and the poor kid looked just about ready to piss himself. Sniffing she realized that he'd been in the closet for quite a while and that if he did, it probably wouldn't be the first time. Wrinkling her nose she slowly stood up. "Ok. I know you don't know me but I need you t…."

"Where's my Mom? Who are you? Did she send you to come get me? I knew she was ok but why didn't she..." The boy asked in rapid succession and she winced. She doubted it would be a good idea to tell him that odds were his mother was dead. He'd figure it out eventually but it wasn't the time to present him with absolutes.

"My name's Buffy." She interrupted him. "We can talk in a minute but for now I need to make sure we're safe. Do you hear that thumping outside?"

"The Zombies." The boy stated matter-of-factly making Buffy wonder just what his mother had been letting him watch on the television.

"Right. The zombies. I need you to stay right here while I go make sure they can't get inside. So just, do that, stay here I mean, and then I'll be right back." Nodding to herself she turned and headed for the living room pausing long enough to put away her dropped daggers. She was pretty sure you weren't supposed to leave anything quite so sharp where a kid could get their hands on them.

"Ok. Cheap thin door. Hungry persistent zombies. This really bites." She mumbled to herself as she evaluated the furniture. She HAD intended to use the couch to sit on but it looked like it would serve far better as a barricade so, regretfully, she sacrificed it to a greater purpose. Rather than noisily pushing it across the floor she simply picked it up, which wasn't as easy as it had looked in her head given that it didn't balance well, and moved it across the room to brace against the door. Following this she added some book shelves, the coffee table and an entertainment unit complete with television and DVD player after she'd ripped the cables out of the back. By that point she had what she considered a fairly respectable barricade. That the noises beyond the door were now muffled and almost inaudible now was an added bonus. Turning around to go find the boy she was quite surprised to find him standing in the hall staring at her with a look of awe on his face.

"You're a super hero!" He exclaimed excitedly.

"Shhh." She quickly responded. "Not so loud. Evil dead outside, remember? And I'm so not a super hero."

"Are too! You picked up the couch and lifted it over your head, I saw you! You looked like you could have THROWN it!" He grinned at her, obviously quite convinced of his conclusions and she sighed. Secret identity. Sure. She supposed that it didn't even matter anymore.

"Ok, I'm a bit of a super hero, don't tell anyone." She admitted. Maybe he'd be so fascinated with the idea of a real live superhero that he wouldn't ask her where his mother was again. There was one conversation she desperately wanted to avoid.

"Cool." He replied, ignoring her admonishment, "Can you fly?"

"What?" She spluttered. "No, I can't fly."

The boy frowned at this instance where she obviously failed to live up to his quickly risen expectations. "Are you bullet proof?"

"Unfortunately, no, because I have to admit that would be pretty useful." She replied patiently, watching as he formulated his next question.

"Well what good are you?" He finished with a scowl.

Apparently being able to throw a couch didn't get her much credit when compared to a fictional Superman. "Hopefully I'm good enough to get you out of here alive. How's that? But first, how long have you been hiding in that closet for?"

The boy just shrugged, and she really needed to find out what his name was so she could stop thinking of him as 'boy'. "The zombies were all over the news, mom kept telling me to stop watching and wouldn't believe me."

"Believe you about what?" She asked.

"That they were zombies." He replied sagely.

"Ah."

"She left. Mrs. Flannery from down the hall started screaming and I told her not to go because in the movie me and Bobby watched the screaming always meant the zombies were there but she wouldn't listen!" The last part was yelled and the zombies outside the apartment moaned their approval as they continued to bang on the door ineffectually.

"So you hid."

"Yah." He whispered. It was then that she realized he already knew his mother was dead, asking Buffy about her had been nothing more than childish optimism. It could very well be her outside, beating on the door and trying to get into what used to be her home. She felt the brief urge to give him a hug but restrained herself. First, he didn't know her and second he really needed a bath.

"Listen. I want you to go get cleaned up. Take a shower; we've already gathered enough zombie attention that a little more won't hurt."

"And then?" He asked apparently unsatisfied with the lack of a long term goal. Apparently he wanted her to be general Buffy.

"And then I'll find us food, to eat." She stumbled.

"And then?"

"We sleep." She replied briefly, stifling her frustration.

"And then?"

"How about we figure that out in the morning all right? Now go grab some fresh clothes and get cleaned up."

"Fine." He pouted before shuffling off to his bedroom. It wasn't until after she heard the shower come on and was rooting around in the cupboard for something that hopefully came in a can that she realized she still didn't know what his name was. Cute kid, a brat but still a cute kid, she was thankful she didn't have a younger sibling if they were all so pest-like. The very thought of living with that kind of questioning day in and out for years on end so thoroughly traumatized her that she stopped to give a brief prayer of thanks to the cow god, her new deity of choice, that she was an only child.

Several hours later she lay in bed, the young boy she now knew was named Steven clean, fed, and curled up in a ball in front of her fast asleep. She could still hear the faint muffled moans of the zombies outside, apparently they simply didn't understand the concept of giving up. From the sounds of it they'd made enough or a racket to bring more of their fellows from the area and she could now hear a chorus of low pitched wailing through the glass of the closed windows. Before settling down for the night she'd added to the barricade just to be safe, which now included Steven's bed and the kitchen table. She was fairly confident by that point that no one was getting through the door. As long as the zombies didn't learn to pull down and climb the ladder to the fire escape she was fairly confidant they were safe for the night.

None of this did anything to help her sleep however. She was too busy mulling over what to do with Steven when she left the next morning, that and she was worried about the unanswered phone call she'd made home. She'd phoned and phoned until Steven had asked her what she was doing and no one had ever answered. Of course that was because the phone lines weren't working. There was no other explanation for it. She didn't know anything about how phones worked of course, and the world was falling apart, so the fact that the number had been accepted and she'd heard the familiar ringing sound meant absolutely nothing. She'd get the stupid key and head back to Sunnydale and everything would be fine.

Steven mumbled something about monsters in his sleep and began moving restlessly. Putting aside her fears for later she wrapped one arm around him and snuggled close. He wasn't Mr. Gordo but he'd do for the moment, and with that thought clear in her head she closed her eyes and dozed off, her sleep filled with unseeing eyes and rotting flesh.

"You're leaving me here?" Steven's incredulous voice made her wince; it wasn't the kind of sound someone wanted to hear first thing in the morning. She hated leaving him alone but what other choice did she have?

"I'm coming back, tonight at the earliest. A couple of days at the most if I run into problems." She offered.

"There are zombies outside the front door!" He screamed.

"Something which your yelling is not going to improve." She responded forcibly before lowering her voice. Grasping for straws she continued "Listen to me Steven – you asked me if I was a super hero, remember?"

"Yes." He replied sullenly. "But…"

"No buts. Sometimes super heroes have to make hard choices because they have a duty. A sacred duty. That's why I have to go do something before I can take you away from here." She tried to reason with him.

"Can't someone else do it?" He pleaded.

"There isn't anyone else. Listen in Sunnydale, where I came from, we have a book, and this book is the only thing we've got that might tell us how to stop the zombies while there are still some people left in the world, before everyone is dead."

"Really?" He brightened. "What does it say?"

"That's just it. No one knows. To make sure no one who shouldn't read it did, some very stuffy old monks made it so you couldn't read the book without the right key." She continued.

"So you're trying to get the key." He stated. Starting to get the idea.

"Which is hopefully about seven blocks away from here in a small occult shop." She agreed. "And being the super hero it is my job to go get it. Unfortunately I can't fly there so I have to go the slow route, up and over every building between here and there so I can stay out of the Zombie's reach. So what I need you to do is just stay here and stay quiet. There's plenty of food in the kitchen, though please don't eat so much you make yourself sick…"

"I'm not a little kid you know. I don't do stupid stuff like that." He interrupted petulantly.

"Sure right. Anyway there's plenty to drink and do you really think any zombie is going to make its way through THAT door?" She looked pointedly at the mound of furniture behind which, hidden somewhere, was the apartment door.

"Not likely." He replied.

"Exactly. Not very likely at all. So stay here, stay safe, and I'll come back after I have the key." She finished.

"Do you Promise, Superhero's honor?" The poor kid sounded worried and who could blame him? As far as he could tell the world was now made up of him, her, and the zombies, and he'd only met her the previous night. It probably didn't help that she'd nearly killed him, not the best kind of first impression to make. She was fairly sure he didn't realize quite how close he'd come to dying but she wasn't about to point it out to him.

"I Promise." She didn't mention that if she didn't come back it would undoubtedly mean she'd messed up and died a horrible death. That wouldn't give him the right kind of encouragement at all and really, in that case, he'd be as good as dead anyway. There was no reason to dwell on the possibility though because she WOULD be coming back.

She began gathering her things and dawning what she could now only think of as her armor. Steven, as was apparently typical of a ten year old boy, had been absolutely fascinated once he'd gotten a good look at her swords. Thankfully he'd dwelt more on the cool dangerous and sharp objects rather than their purpose or what she'd been doing with them. Strapping the harness over the jacket she made sure it was on tightt before giving Steven a quick hug. She then quietly opened the window and peeked out, the crowd of zombies gathered below her now fairly daunting.

"Wait!" Steven yelled as she was about to step onto the fire escape and she turned back with a raised eyebrow.

"What?" She asked in a hushed voice, looking down and eyeing the array of milky white eyes below her, all of which were now firmly turned in her direction. Not an auspicious beginning.

"You never told me your name!" He stated, as if she'd offended him. Given that he was wrong she couldn't imagine how. Maybe he had a medical condition. Alzheimer's? Then again, he wasn't exactly old enough for that yet.

"Yes I did. Buffy Summers. Remember?" She asked concerned.

"No. Not that name. Your superhero name." He responded, rolling his eyes as if it was the most obvious lapse in the world.

"Oh. Right. That. Well. I suppose that would be Slayer."

He wrinkled his brow "What kind of name is that?"

"Everyone's a critic." She sighed then decided to humor him, maybe it would make him more optimistic about her likelihood of returning. Taking a brief moment to find her inner Giles she sat down on the window sill and began in a strong and sure voice. She almost included an English accent but stopped herself in time though, really, she firmly believed Slayer lore lost something without the British context?

"Ok. It goes something like this. Contrary to popular belief the world didn't not begin as a paradise. It began in darkness. Demons and dark gods walked the earth and made it their home. But after a time they lost their hold on this reality until most of them were forced to leave making way for lesser animals… and for man. One of the last true demons before it left mixed its blood with a mortal, creating the first vampire. They were like a plague on mankind, multiplying and killing without fear or opposition. So some old mystics - because mystics are always old - got together and created the slayer by taking a young girl, Sineya, and giving her the strength and skill to fight the demons." Images of the dark aboriginal creature that had tried to kill them in their dreams flashed through her mind taking over her thoughts for a moment. "She was primal, she lived in the cry of the hunt and the blood of the kill..." Shaking herself free of the memory she focused again on telling Steven a motivational story. "...and the Vampire's finally had something to fear. But she wasn't immortal and one day she died. But these were smart mystics, if somewhat sadistic, and they knew that their champion wouldn't be invincible so they made sure that when she died the part of her that made her a vampire slayer would pass on and it did - seeking out another girl to follow and giving her the strength and skill that Sineya had once possessed. So it's been ever since. I believe the watcher line goes something like this. Into every generation a slayer is born, a chosen one, one girl in all the world with the strength and skill to fight the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness and stem the swell of their number. She is the Slayer."

By this point Steven had returned to his initial wide eyed awe, which had vanished the previous night, shortly after he learned that she couldn't fly.

"So when I say I'm coming back to save you. I mean it. I WILL be coming back. I've beaten demons, a Frankenstein monster, and more vampires than you could possibly count. I even killed Dracula himself, which was really pretty cool. So when I say I'm coming back for you I mean it, I'm coming back."

Steven just nodded, staring at her with a new respect bordering on hero worship that she found just a bit disturbing. If it gave him enough confidence to last until she came back though it was worth it… she just hoped that the speech never got back to Giles, she'd never live it down. Admitting she DID pay attention when he talked would firmly ruin her ability to skimp on future research sessions.

Leaving the gob smacked boy to his, well, gob smacking she supposed, she slipped out of the window, closed it behind her, and quickly scaled to the fire escape as high as it would go jumping from there to the lip of the roof and pulling herself up and over. Laying there and sucking in deep breaths she reminded herself that she had seven more blocks to go and that it was far too soon to take a break. While she was busy doing this a zombie tried to eat her. Still on the ground she was caught completely by surprise as the fairly well preserved handyman tried to pounce on her, worse yet he'd obviously been a fitness nut while alive and he was nothing but solid muscle which looked very intimidating from her position flat on her back. Without thinking about it she rolled backwards.

It was only after she found herself falling through the air that she remembered she was on the edge of a roof. One of her hands latched on to the passing fire escape with a mind of its own and she winced as her arm tried to separate itself from her shoulder. It stayed firmly attached, no thanks to her latest act of stupidity, but on the bright side the body building handy man had apparently followed her right off the roof and unlike her hadn't had the reflexes to stop his fall. Hanging from one complaining arm she still couldn't suppress a certain amount of morbid curiosity and turned to watch as the zombie tumbled to the ground below. Several of the dead observers helpfully tried to break his fall, or at least they weren't smart enough to move out of the way, and by the time he hit the ground at least four zombies were never going to walk again, though whether they were still able to sit around biting at anything that wandered too close she couldn't say.

Reaching up with her other hand she pulled herself onto the fire escape and climbed back up the three floors she'd fallen before halting her descent. This time, when she jumped to the top of the roof she wasn't lazy about it. She didn't lie down and congratulate herself for an Olympic worthy act of athletics. Instead she took out her swords, surveyed the roof, and made damn good and sure that nothing else was about to try and kill her. She was tired, despite a night of rest, and worn out and depressed and she intended to stay that way thank you very much to whoever was listening.

Over the course of the next three hours she moved from rooftop to rooftop, 'cautious' her new watchword, encountering seven more isolated zombies and crossing three suspenseful intersections before she felt compelled to take a break. After a brief rest complimented by a bag of pretzels and some bottled water she continued on, whispering to herself that there were only four more blocks to go.

When she reached the next intersection and peaked over the edge of the roof she groaned quietly and swore. Maybe that would work… just walking down the street and groaning like she was one of them - maybe with the addition of some milky white contact lenses for added authenticity. Of course given that this was real life she highly doubted it though that did raise the question of why the zombies only attacked the living but seemed to leave each other alone. Either way none of her speculation was going to get her through the crowd that had congregated around a liquor store, apparently with their taste buds set on someone hiding inside and probably getting as drunk as humanly possible. Whoever it was had probably decided that drinking themselves to death was a better way to go than as zombie chowder but that didn't help her out one bit. From what she could see she'd have to go a block out of her way to avoid the mob of somewhere between fifty and a hundred zombies. It was either that or wade right through them.

She considered that idea for the moment. Alarms in the back of her head went off and she once again pointed out to herself just how suicidal such an act would be - but for once her frustration matched her fear and she ignored found the common sense arguments held little weight. She'd lose a good two hours going around them, two hours that would guarantee she wouldn't make it back to Steven that night which was something she'd hoped to avoid. While the gathering below was impressive it wasn't as disturbingly dense as the one that had amassed below the apartment the night before. Maybe she could handle them? On top of that, despite the stupidity of what she was considering, there were people inside the liquor store who were as good as dead if she didn't intervene. The only thing she didn't understand was why there weren't more zombies around, the only explanation she could think of being that they'd all been drawn elsewhere by far more vocal survivors. Like Steven. So, her options were to go two hours out of her way, or to kill a hundred zombies and hope more didn't follow in an effort to save the life someone with such a strong sense of self preservation that their first instinct at a sign of the apocalypse was to get sloshed.

Self preservation and fear warred with duty and the long building frustration she'd felt at hiding in her home while the town, her town, had fallen to an army of the dead. It had been her place to protect them and she'd failed. It was the sense of duty that finally tipped the scales, or so she told herself. Someone could be alive in there, and she was tired of letting people die.

The milling crowd was focused on the building across the way so dropping to the ground unnoticed was simplicity itself. The first couple of zombies were slain nice and quietly, she slid a dagger into their brainstems and lowered them to the ground gently and silently. It was the third that fell with a soft thump on the asphalt that drew empty eyes away from the liquor store to focus on the intruder in their gathering. As one they screamed and with all reason for subtlety gone she unsheathed her swords and began cutting down anything that came within arms length of her, maneuvering around the outside of the crowd to try and keep them from surrounding her. If she hadn't been a slayer it would have been suicide – even as a slayer the sudden onslaught made her begin to wonder if she had a hidden death wish her subconscious had kept to itself. At first she only had to deal with one or two zombies at a time, easily dispatched even as the crowd began to flow towards her with a single purpose. A swing of her sword severed yet another head, a jab of a spike impaled a skull only to fling it lose as the same sword decapitated another undead monster. But then they started to close in on her, undeterred by the deaths of those before them, each charging corpse now nearer to its neighbor and despite her best efforts she found herself with enemies in every direction. When she positioned herself so three zombies running towards her were to her front only to hear two more moaning from behind her she had to stifle a brief urge to panic. Instead she pivoted, her swords sweeping quickly to either side as she turned and, for a moment, acted almost as the blades of a fan. It would never work of course. In the next moment she'd be pulled to the ground by whichever of the corpses slipped past her guard. Recklessly she used the same strength with which she'd raised a couch over her head and the blades sliced the air so quickly that if they hadn't found purchase she'd have sent herself spinning like a top but her aim was perfect and the zombies had no sense of self preservation. To her complete surprise five partially decapitated heads went flying and without hesitating she followed through by turning the blades to impale the heads of two zombies who had at the same time been racing in from either side.

It was then that she realized she could do this. These weren't demons, covered in thick hide or heavy scales. They weren't even the often quick and agile vampires, even the stupidest of which knew when to duck. They were corpses. Dead humans with less intelligence than animals and no defense against strength meant to protect man from far sturdier creatures of darkness than they. It was a monumental shift in her thought process, instinct if not training told her that certain uses of a sword were suicidal and left her completely vulnerable to an intelligent or cautious opponent, or even one that just had a sense of self preservation. Rushing at a group of four zombies to make sure she reached them before the three following her became a problem she felled them all with a single swing, human skulls little impedance to a demonic sword sharper than any steel wielded with the strength of a slayer. Somersaulting over their still standing torso's she spun in mid air, swords reaching out and felling the zombies that had been following behind them, now charging by underneath her with too much momentum to turn and track her unexpected flight above.

So with new understanding of her enemy she embraced her calling, to be the slayer, and her original goal long forgotten she moved with new purpose as she cut down every feral corpse that came within reach of her swords - moving with speed and purpose she'd lost to the hopelessness that had embraced both her and her family and friends. Surrounded by slavering corpses she took every ounce of fear, horror, and anger that had built up in the face of the overwhelming devastation sweeping the earth and let it loose in a dance of violence. Her blades became a blur - severing the air itself and as if rejoicing in the carnage they took up voice. They sang for her and she lost herself in their song.

It was later, though she had no true sense of the time and couldn't say how long, that she came back to herself, standing on a pile of headless corpses that the last of the zombies called from blocks around by the commotion had in the end been forced to scale to try and reach her. Her leather jacket and pants were covered in black ichor and her hair was soaked with fluids she didn't want to even think about, her boots were completely beyond hope of saving, and yet her swords, having slain hundreds over the unknown course of time still gleamed brightly and she had the vague sensation, felt somewhere in the back of her head, that they were laughing. She shook the sensation off wondering when she'd developed such an imagination.

She'd really have to name them. If mister pointy was deserving of a name then these two beauties had more than earned titles of their own. Of course that would also require finding a way to tell them apart from each other. Slicer and Dicer maybe.… it had a certain ring to it, on the other hand they might be mistaken for reindeer.

Casually she wandered over to the liquor shop only to find that the businessman inside had obviously drunk himself to death at least a day before and done a very thorough job of it. Thankfully it looked like he'd stayed dead afterwards and she saw nothing to suggest he planned to get up and go for a walk in the near future. Disappointed with what she'd found, but unsurprised, she turned and began making her way down the next block humming to herself something catchy which she vaguely remembered hearing on the radio. Avril maybe? Or possibly Michelle Branch. Still humming she kept her eyes open and observant while at the same time trying to recall the triviality which she knew would bother her for days if she didn't figure it out.

This time, she walked in the middle of the road, a sword resting on each shoulder.


	5. Short, Slain, and Sadly Sober

_**Chapter 5: Short, Slain, and Sadly Sober**_

Jerry swirled the amber liquid in his cup with a grin on his face. Life had all been going so well and he still couldn't get over how quickly it had collapsed. The humans had been so proud of their progress with their computer and their technology. They'd even gone to the moon and lauded it as some great marvelous accomplishment. And what in the end had it all gotten them?

"Walkin', rottin', corpses – that's what!" He shouted with glee. The zombies outside moaned and shrieked loudly in response and banged all the louder on the front of his shop. Jerry simply chortled and took another swig from his glass. He'd known the humans would come to no good in the end and unlike all those self-righteous demons he'd been forced to associate with he'd known it would be of their own doing. He'd heard it day in and day out for centuries. Hell on Earth the demons would say. Fire and brimstone they'd claim - even if most of them didn't have one inkling of an idea what brimstone truly was. As many humans to eat and torture as they could desire every one of the ghastly beasts had believed. No, this wasn't any demonic apocalypse, he'd bet his last gold coin on it. Only humans could mess up so spectacularly as to pull off something like this. But no matter how much he'd believed they would kill themselves off he had never once thought they'd turn themselves into a bunch of walking, rotting, corpses!

Just thinking about it made Jerry want to laugh. So that's what he did – loudly. Once again the zombies seemed to thump harder in response to his taunting - pathetic creatures that they were. There were so many of them outside his shop now that he'd been forced to stick cotton soaked in lemon juice up his nostrils just so his poor sensitive nose could survive the stench.

He went to take a sip of his drink only to find the glass completely empty. Frowning in consternation he looked at the bottle only to find it too held nary a drop. Seeing as he'd yet to manage a truly proper and respectable state of inebriation he wasn't about to let an empty bottle stop him in his quest. Jerry climbed down from his stool, grumbling all the way, and headed into the back room where he kept his odds and ends. Searching high and low he found enough cursed artifacts hanging on the walls to damn an entire town if used discriminately. Filling both shelves and boxes there were enough books of arcane magic to fill a library. One that would please either an entire coven of witches or a den of sorcerers depending on the particular volumes selected. But no matter where he looked he was led to the same sad conclusion. To his utter disgust he now found that his entire stash of alcohol had already been consumed.

If he got his hands on the bugger who'd drunk it all there'd be some severe neck wringing to be had.

He turned and headed back to the front room, committing himself to search for the villain, when his nose twitched. Given that it was currently stuffed with cotton he was surprised that anything could get its attention but his nose had never failed him yet. He freed himself from the once white fluffy insulators which had by now taken up a somewhat green hue. Inhaling deeply he fought the urge to cringe at the reek of decay permeating everything. Then remembering that he was alone as could be he went ahead and cringed. His nose twitched again, slightly to the left. A sniff here, and a sniff there, and he soon found himself standing over a box of so called blessed objects. He occasionally pulled the useless things out when someone who thought themselves 'moral' came poking around his shop. He always overcharged the arrogant bastards. Stuffing the puff balls back in his nose he gave a good sniff. Satisfied that the reek was gone he turned to the box and began rummaging around for the elusive source his nose had insisted was hiding within. Moments later his hand closed on something that felt suspiciously alcoholic and he gave a shout of glee before pulling out a bottle of wine with a plain looking label. The writing on the label turned his smile into a grimace when he realized it was blessed wine, something he should have expected given which box it had been hidden in. It wasn't Christian thank goodness. The bottle had been brewed and blessed by some shaolin monks or some of their ilk from what he recalled – though he had to wonder just who exactly they thought they were to be blessing anything.

Normally it would be worth at least a thousand dollars to an uneducated customer. Thin and weak though it probably was. As the last bottle of alcohol in his shop it was now as priceless as anything could be. Popping the cork with his slightly claw-like nails he took a swig straight from the bottle and sighed in relief. It was undeniably weak, but it was alcohol none the less.

Finding his way back into the main room and behind his shop counter he clamored up on the stool as fast as he could given his rather substantial burden. It wasn't until he'd corked the bottle and lifted the now brimming full glass to his lips that his right ear twitched violently. Frowning he reached up and flicked the blasted thing. It wasn't about to hear more alcohol hiding someplace so he certainly couldn't care less what it had to say. It could keep its damn twitching to itself. When after a moment no further twitches had followed he relaxed. Satisfied that it knew its place he lifted the glass again only to cringe when his left ear decided to join the effort and nearly ripped itself from the side of his head. He slammed his glass down on the table with a growl and came to the disappointing conclusion that his ears weren't likely to leave him alone until he paid proper attention to them. Staring mournfully at his full glass of weak blessed wine he listened for a moment - entirely unsure as to what he was supposed to be listening for. Frustratingly he didn't hear a thing. Nothing even so loud as a pin dropping. Not a creak or a moan…

He couldn't hear nary a moan or a thump or a shreek, not one. Suddenly alert he sat up stiffly on his stool and turned his head towards the front of the shop. The solid wooden door was still firmly secured and the windows with their security bars were just as they should be. The zombies, on the other hand, were not. There'd been a growing crowd of them mingling outside since the whole mess had started. Pathetic things they had been, just staring in at him as he laughed at their predicament. Apparently they'd all decided to go for a walk. Not that he objected. It meant that when he finally made his move it would be all that much easier to escape. What he didn't like not knowing, because there were very few things the great Jerrizangalisander didn't know, was why they had gone.

Suspicious now he began to climb off his stool, pausing only to empty his glass. He'd undoubtedly need the fortification shortly. Not that wine blessed by monks was very fortifying of course but he'd take what he could get. Creeping over to the door, as much as a wrinkly gnome could creep after he'd been alive for longer than a millennium, he peeked out the window only to find a suspiciously empty street. It was this action that placed his head in inconvenient proximity to the door when his left ear twitched again. He was still grimacing when someone took a sledge hammer to the inside of his head and beat soundly against the interior.

"Of all the god forsaken..." stumbling away from the door he took a moment to try and remember just how much booze he'd swallowed in the last day. It took a fair bit to get a Gnome drunk of course but he usually managed it two or three times in any given century. He'd been so certain he wasn't there yet however and he refused to allow that he might have gone right past drunk and started on the hangover. The very notion was far too depressing. It was only when the sound echoed through the shop again that he realized that the source of the sound was entirely exterior to his cranium. Despite all logical thought to the contrary some inconsiderate ignoramus was outside and pounding away at his door. His ear twitched again as if in reprimand.

"Alrigh'." He mumbled. "Knockin' at me door. Knockin' like an oaf not poundin' like a zombie."

It was when the knocking sounded for the third and final time, shaking the door on its hinges that it occurred to him that it might be a good idea to answer before they savaged his refuge. "I hear ye! I hear ye! Just who are ye to be knockin' on me door in the middle of an apocalypse, ay?"

There was a brief silence and he felt momentarily optimistic that whatever demon was outside and had eaten all the zombies might decide to leave him in peace. Perhaps it was one of those mythical demons he'd always dreamt up in his imagination – the kind that was deathly frighted of all things gnomish but happy to beat the stuffing out of anything else. Of course he wasn't too hopeful. Gnomes usually knew better than to be optimistic seeing as how it was a truly poor survival trait. True to expectation it wasn't long before a very unusual voice for a demon yelled loudly in response. "Open the door!"

Jerry's ear didn't twitch in the slightest, which he took as an indication that the voice wasn't one he'd ever heard before. It didn't even sound like a demon really and if he didn't know better he'd think it was merely a woman. Of course it was possible it could be a vampire. Glancing out the window again he noted the brightly lit streets and quickly dismissed that particular notion. Several more knocks sounded and he began to worry about his shops integrity. Simple survival skills told him that anything that strong would not be denied. So it was that he grudgingly moved forward and turned the dead lock, opening the door a crack before moving backward as quick as his gnomish legs would take him.

The door was open and closed again before he'd even registered who his guest was. It took a moment for his eyes to climb up a pair of long and firm leather wrapped legs. On top of them he found a not unappealing and equally leather wrapped torso. Finally his eyes reached the face of what was obviously a slightly grungy young woman. Her flowing blond hair was stained and her face was covered in dust and blood but she looked no less appealing for the muck of travel. His mouth began to water. He took a moment to sniff with his nose to confirm it and even through the cotton he could recognize the smell of a mortal in the prime of her life. Jerry quickly adopted a friendly grin. Whatever had taken the zombies was apparently long gone, but this wee lass was more than welcome.

She was completely and wonderfully human. A little ridiculously well armed but thankfully it was nothing he couldn't deal with. He'd repressed his appetite for decades, this particular gnome never having had difficulty suppressing his urges for the sake of survival. Civilization was gone however and there was no longer any reason to deny himself.

She was perfect and he would have her.

Buffy stared down at the odd little man and tried to keep from smiling. Something about the grin on his face was irresistibly welcoming and she couldn't help but wonder how he'd maintained such an attitude with zombies pounding on his window. Then she caught a whiff of his odor and she didn't need to wonder anymore. At least this one was still alive.

"And what could possibly bring a young lady such as yerself to me door on the eve of an apocalypse? Heard of me store have ye? Perhaps yer lookin' for a curse or two now that there's no one to look down on ye if ye were to dabble in some of them wee black magics?" He laughed gleefully and then trotted over to a display case filled with the kind of musty old books that Giles always loved. "Books of wardin' to protect ye and hide ye from the most fiendish of foes. No refunds if they don't work on zombies of course – I can't be blamed if there was never a zombie around to test them on now can I?"

"Actually I was looking for something specific…." Buffy interrupted, though she did wonder if any of those books might come in handy at some point. Maybe there was something Willow and Tara might find useful. Zombie shielding sounded like a brilliant idea. Something to light zombies on fire when they walked past it sounded even better.

"Jerry lass. Jerry Sander at your service. Perhaps given the unusual nature of yer vestments of choice these yon tools might prove more to yer likin'!" Moving to a huge wooden cupboard Jerry swung the doors wide to reveal a shining array of weapons. Daggers and short swords of varying size and design covered the interior and she had to admit that several would go rather fetchingly with Slicer and Dicer. Shaking herself she stepped back. For all she knew they could all be cursed. Just because the little man was friendly didn't mean he was her friend. If anything he seemed a bit too friendly. She'd expected anyone she met in the middle of an apocalypse to be grouchy and frustrated if not outright violent. Sort of like Steven had been with the screaming and the panicking. "Perhaps somethin' to go with the fine blades mounted on yer back. Might I have a look at them? Merely a glance to satisfy me curiosity?"

"Actually, Jerry, as nice as the weapons are - and some of them are really, really nice - I'm actually looking for something specific." Not seeing the harm she pulled out one of the swords for him so he could get a better look. Simultaneously she handed him the sketch which he took but didn't even glance at, his eyes held captive by the shiny surface of what she was pretty sure was Dicer. She really needed to find a way to get them engraved. When his hand slowly reached out as if to touch the sword she quickly drew it away – something in his look making him seem not quite as human as she'd at first believed. He was watching the sword with what she could only describe as lust and it was giving her a thorough case of the wiggins. Slipping Dicer back in her sheath broke the spell and the mask fell away to once again reveal the friendly little shop keeper who had greeted her. He still hadn't looked at Gile's sketch.

"Now where did ye get yer hands on a fine piece like that I wonder." He stated like a question, his voice full of nothing more sinister than the appreciation of a dedicated collector. She wasn't sure she was buying it.

"Demonic dueling swords or something. Giles picked them up in London." She responded casually. It wasn't top secret information or anything and she was very curious to see how he responded. The incredulity that followed wasn't at all what she'd expected.

"Duelin' swords? Duelin' swords?" Jerry broke out in a full belly laugh that filled the shop. "From the KRevSZitch clans I suppose. Oh that's a good one."

"But if that's not what they…."

"Oh don't worry yerself none. It won't matter to ye at all. But still, I can tell ye for sure that no demon ever used those in a duel friendly or otherwise." When the little man finally stopped laughing he promptly trotted around the shop counter and disappeared. Blinking in confusion Buffy walked forward to peer over the top of it only for him to pop up on a stool right in front of her. Grabbing a bottle of almost transparent liquid he took a good long swig before offering it to her with that increasingly disturbing smile still plastered on his face. "Would ye like some?"

"Why do you have cotton stuffed up your nose?" She asked in response. It was the first time she'd been able to see his nostrils. He was just that short.

"What? Oh, these!" He Yanked the cotton out of his nose and Buffy quickly wished she'd never asked. The bits in view may have been white but the rest of the small cotton balls was now a vivid putrid green that made her feel slightly ill to observe. Given that her hair was probably soaked with zombie brains and the rest of her was covered in various other zombie fluids that really shouldn't have been possible. There was one thing that she was sure of. Nothing human that wasn't dying in a hospital had ever produced that color from their nostrils. She'd bet her life on it.

Of course that meant that Jerry wasn't nearly as human as he pretended to be. It would certainly explain his stature. She'd known that finding someone shorter than her was too good to be true. That right there should have tipped her off that he was probably demonic. Ok, he could have just been an oddly proportioned midget or so ridiculously old that he'd shrunk but neither of those possibilities would have explained how ridiculously cheerful he was. It all matched up with that weird look he'd had in his eyes when he watched her sword. Of course, demonic didn't mean violent, it just implied it ninety-nine times out of a hundred. She let one hand fall casually near the dagger strapped to her thigh as a matter of caution.

"Well!" He cried, interrupting her careful assessment of his demon factor. "Why on Earth would ye be wantin' one of these?"

"So you have it then?" Buffy brightened at the good news. This meant the trip wasn't a waste and that she hadn't left her family alone and unprotected for nothing. She stomped on the thought the moment it entered her head. Steven's life couldn't in any way be described as nothing. The Scooby gang wasn't helpless and if she hadn't traveled this way Steven would probably have died, scared and alone. He'd probably still be hiding in the closet.

"It? Ye make it sound like there's only one of them lass. They're trinkets for the tourists. An old arcane object of forgotten purpose. Legends and lore tell of its long lost powers of wardin' and protectin' against dark evils. So forth and so forth. They eat it up. I'd buy yon trinkets for ten dollars a piece and when a sucker wandered into me shop I could sell one for a couple of hundred. They'd go home and nail it to their wall all proud of themselves." He pointed over at a bin in the corner. "Check in there why don't ye lass. I don't usually keep them on display but I might have left some rattling around in yon box."

"Replicas of the original then." She sighed. "Hey, you didn't try to sell one to a stuffy British guy by any chance? Probably wearing tweed?"

"Couple of months ago, perhaps? Aye, I remember the prick. Called me a fraud and walked right out of me store!" Jerry complained with a voice full of indignation.

"Um. You were trying to con him, remember?" Buffy asked as she moved toward the bin.

"Doesn't make it polite to say so." Jerry replied and she couldn't hide a smile. She really hoped he wasn't evil. He was far too amusing to die. Her slaydar hadn't gone off once, which was odd if he was a demon, but she was still getting a dishonnest vibe from him that had nothing to do with ripping off ignorant shoppers. Looking into the box he'd pointed out she found it filled with beads and fake looking jewelry. It certainly wasn't the home of any ancient key knock-offs.

That was when she heard the click.

Only a moment later it was followed by a loud explosion of sound that echoed throughout the small building. Looking up from the spot where she now crouched behind the ward books Buffy observed a disturbingly large hole in the weapons cabinet. Encouragingly his aim was obviously poor. The hole wasn't any higher from the ground than her knee caps. On the downside he had something to aim with and obviously considered her an acceptable target. She wondered if the kick-back had knocked him off his stool.

"Ah blast it. Be a good lass and stand still. There's no reason to make this difficult. Never would have thought that a young lady like yerself could move so fast." Great. She'd just known it. He'd been way too good to be true. She'd never have that kind of luck – not in the middle of an apocalypse anyway. "Er not to be impolite but would ye kindly move out from behind the ward books? I could try shootin' ye through them I suppose but that would be a mighty grand waste of some very valuable merchandise."

"I knew it. I just knew you were evil. Too short, too friendly, and way too helpful. Not to mention the disgusting green stuff in your nose." Buffy vented loudly. Jerry made a sound of protest at the last but she ignored him. "I'm so going to have to slay you now. You're a leprechaun aren't you? I mean, green boogers, a drinking problem, and that funny way you talk. What else could you possibly be?"

"Oye! There's no reason to be gettin' personal. And a leprechaun? I've never been so insulted in me life. Nasty foul little creatures. I'll have ye know those monsters are all half me height and they'd never have stopped to talk to ye, just filled yer stomach with gold coins or ripped out yer entrails and strangled ye with them." He had to be the wimpiest demon she'd ever met. For that matter what self respecting monster would ever touch a gun? He should so be embarrassed. Maybe she'd report him to the monster's union. "Now if ye'd just step out so we can move this along. I'm not going to kill ye. Well, not right away. What kind of sick soul do ye think I am?"

"A short evil one." She replied with a pout. Hopefully he'd just keep on talking.

"Well I'm no necrophiliac. And me height's perfect. Yer just far, far too tall. Figure a couple of bullets in yer legs and I can have me way with ye" And to imagine - Buffy had thought zombies disgusting. They paled in comparison with the littlest pervert. "Haven't had sex in a decade ye know, trying to fit in with all this civilization forces one to forgo the finer pleasures in life. Of course I haven't eaten human flesh in even longer so ye'll of course be going in a stew later. We Gnomes prefer younger meat of course but from the looks of ye, ye'll still taste nice and sweet going down me gullet."

"Gross! Did you even have one of those keys or was that a lie too?" She needled. He'd keep talking. They always did.

"Gnomes never lie. I resent the very implication. If yer referrin' to those worthless curios then there might have been one in the box. I really wasn't sure but I know I have a couple someplace. My memory comes and goes when I've been imbibin'. Like right now I can't even remember what we were talkin' about thirty seconds ago… no, wait." While he paused to think Buffy reached down to the bottom edge of her chosen weapon and made sure she had a firm grip. "Maybe I do remember after all, damnation. Still sober. I knew the blasted wine wouldn't do the job. Never trust a monk to make good booze. About thirty seconds ago ye mentioned that ye'd have to... But wait - no - that surely can't be right."

Jerry paused for a moment before continuing and Buffy waited with him. She supposed it never hurt to let someone finish their last words. When Jerry continued it was in a voice lacking much of his earlier jovial bravado. "Ye mightn't, perchance, have mentioned somethin' concernin' slayin' a wee bit earlier? Lass? Ye certainly didn't mean to imply yer the chosen one I hope."

In a single motion Buffy lifted the entire set of warding shelves and threw them at Jerry's stool. She didn't bother rushing after them. Instead she stopped to congratulate herself on a wonderful toss, watching as the bottom of the shelves swept the disgusting little creature off of his stool and onto the floor. The crunching sound that resulted when the book case followed him down brought a wide grin to her face. Her first slay with a set of book shelf. It might even be the first slay ever with a set of book shelves. Completely Guinness worthy. It was entirely within the realm of possibilities.

The smile she'd been wearing vanished when she remembered what he'd wanted to do to her. Before meeting the creep she'd needed a shower. Now she needed sandpaper. Peeking over the counter to make sure he was dead she nodded to herself in satisfaction at the suspiciously green pool spreading out from where his head had been crushed by the solid oak furniture. In fact his blood was almost neon with its greenness while still somehow managing to look putrid. Who had he thought he was kidding with all the gnome talk? Shaking her head she secured the front door. Then she went to check out the rest of the shop.

With any luck there'd even be someplace to wash up. She just hoped the sinks weren't all placed at leprechaun height. If she looked hard enough maybe she'd even find his pot of gold.

Buffy slid the window open and quietly slipped inside pulling a rather full duffel bag she'd picked found at Jerry's behind her. Turning around she found Steven sitting on the floor where he'd been quietly playing solitaire before her arrival. This of course meant that he hadn't turned into a zombie while she was gone as she was pretty sure zombies had no use for cards. She'd gotten a cheap knock-off of the key, Steven was still safe, and her bike was sitting outside with a full tank of gas. She was really starting to get the hang of the whole apocalyptic living deal. She paused to wonder if she should write a book. Hints and tips on survival in the land of the dead – the slayer edition. It would definitely be a number one best seller. She smiled a welcome at Steven who had oddly wide eyes and had yet to say a word.

He screamed.

At a loss Buffy simply stood still - staring at him until he ran out of air. Then she quirked an eyebrow. "I don't look that bad do I? If you're going to scream every time I try to say hello tell me now. A person needs to be prepared for that kind of thing."

Steven frowned for a moment before asking in a hesitant voice. "Slayer?"

Buffy groaned. "Me Buffy, you Steven. Which part of this is hard to remember?"

"Oh." Steven shrugged and looked back at his game. From the looks of it he was losing. "Sorry. I thought you were a zombie."

"What!?" Buffy asked in shock. "If you're trying to insult me then congratulations. Job well done."

"You're covered in blood and you reek. What was I supposed to think?" Steven asked before perking up. "Hey! Does this mean you found what you were looking for? Can we go now? They haven't stopped pounding on the door once! Not the entire time you were gone!"

"I smell?" Buffy asked with a frown. Lifting her arm she took an experimental whiff of herself and found she couldn't smell anything at all.

"You smell horrible." He began. "Its even worse than this one time when we went on a school trip and Leroy tripped and he fell into this big bucket of..."

"Sure. Right. Anyway yes, I found the key. I actually found a dozen of them but I only took one." She replied to his earlier question. "I found a couple of other things too. Though I am a little concerned that I may have offed one of the seven dwarves. I'm thinking Sneezy. It would certainly explain the cotton. Or maybe Sleazy. Definitely Sleazy."

Xander would have laughed. Willow would have had an even better name for the little wretch. Steven just looked at her blankly. "Can we have supper now?"

For just a moment Buffy let herself wallow in some well earned depression. Then she pasted a smile on her face.

"Sure. Just let me go get cleaned up and see if I can salvage my pants before they decided to start start walking on their own." Wiping her boots on the carpet to remove the worst of the zombie remains she stopped before heading to the bathroom. "Make sure you pack Steve. Just some changes of clothes, whatever you can fit in a backpack."

Steven started putting the cards away and nodded with all the wisdom of his years. Then he frowned and looked back up. "How are we getting past all the zombies?"

"What zombies?" Was Buffy's blithe response before she disappeared into the bathroom.

Steven had to wait a very painful ten minutes before the shower finally turned on. When the water started running and he was sure she was busy Steven stopped his packing and ran to the living room window. Peeking outside his eyes opened wide. He turned his head to the left and then to the right and stared as hard as he could but it made no difference. Try as he might he couldn't find a single living zombie. Not a zombie up and walking around. Not even a single zombie dead and lying on the ground. The scary part was that he hadn't heard a thing when they vanished.

"Wow." He whispered. She really WAS a superhero.


End file.
